Machine learning models for identifying sports teams depicted in image or video data

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are described for identifying at least one sports team depicted in media content, such as image or video data. Features of the media content may be provided as input to a first set of classification models that are each trained to identify at least one type of scene associated with one or more sports, then features of the media content may be provided to a second set of classification models trained to identify at least one object associated with one or more sports. Once a sport depicted in the media content is determined based on the first and second set of classification models, the system may determine a team depicted in the media content based at least in part by comparing aspects of the media content to stored data associated with various teams that play the identified sport.

INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE TO ANY PRIORITY APPLICATIONS

Any and all applications for which a foreign or domestic priority claimis identified in the Application Data Sheet as filed with the presentapplication are hereby incorporated by reference under 37 CFR 1.57.

This application claims benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationSer. No. 62/397,739 entitled “Efficiently Identifying Image Objects inVideo Data Using Video Fingerprinting” filed Sep. 21, 2016, U.S.Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/421,886 entitled “DeterminingSponsorship Value Based on Analysis of Image and Video Data” filed Nov.14, 2016, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/505,758entitled “Determining Sponsorship Value Based on Analysis of Image andVideo Data” filed May 12, 2017, which are hereby incorporated byreference in their entireties.

BACKGROUND

It is common for companies to sponsor sporting events or to otherwiseplace their advertisements within a sports arena. For example, a companymay contract with a party having rights in an arena, team or league toplace a banner within a stadium during game days, to place a logo on ateam jersey, to have an advertisement displayed on digital signagewithin a stadium, etc. Sponsors and holders of rights in the advertisingspace often determine pricing and desirability of specific advertisingspace based in part on in-person audience attendance at the sportingevent and a size of the television audience watching the sporting eventat home. However, it is increasingly common, due in part to changes inthe way that people consume content, that these attendance andtelevision viewership numbers may significantly underestimate the numberof people that actually saw at least a clip or highlight of the sportingevent that contained a sponsor's logo or advertisement. For example,short video highlights are often played across many different televisionchannels as well as shared on the Internet via social media networks,video sharing platforms and other services. These additional exposuresare not typically tracked in any reliable or comprehensive manner.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages will becomemore readily appreciated as the same become better understood byreference to the following detailed description, when taken inconjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIGS. 1 and 2 are flow diagrams of illustrative methods for determiningan aggregated media value associated with a brand exposure based onvideo fingerprinting techniques.

FIG. 3 is a system block diagram of a computing environment suitable foruse in various embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of an illustrative method for determining anoverall sponsor valuation based on images and/or video appearing insocial media posts.

FIG. 5A illustrates sample media analysis data that may be determinedand/or stored in accordance with aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5B is a portion of a sample report providing a full media valuedetermined by the system for a given brand over a given time range thatis broken down in a number of ways.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of an illustrative method for analyzing imageor video data to determine the sport, team name, home or away gamestatus, and sponsor information associated with an underlying game eventcaptured in the image or video.

FIG. 7 is a an illustrative flow diagram for training one or moreclassifiers or classification models to identify specific objects ofinterest in video data.

FIG. 8 illustrates a graphical markup of a video frame highlightingidentified logos along with determined media values.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram of an illustrative method for determining anoverall sponsor valuation based on images and/or video appearing inmedia items.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram of an exchange system for allocation ofdynamic signage at one or more physical locations.

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram of an illustrative method for causingpresentation of visual sponsorship data on dynamic signage at one ormore physical locations, which can include valuation of time segments onthe dynamic signage according to real-world events.

FIG. 12 illustrates historical data for use by the exchange system intime segments on the dynamic signage.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to efficiently analyzing largeamounts of video data to identify portions of video where one or morelogos or other image objects of interest appear, and determining anaggregated media value attributable to an underlying original sourceevent or source video associated with the logo exposure. For example,suppose that a company sponsors a sporting event that is broadcast ontelevision, and the company's logo or name appears onscreen (such asappearing on a sign or banner in a stadium) for various segments of thelive broadcast. While this live event results in the immediate brandexposure with respect to the viewers that watch the game broadcast,there may be a number of additional viewers that see the logo or brandname during a replay or highlight of the sporting event included in thenightly news or a sports analysis program that airs on a differentchannel at some point hours or even days after the sporting event. Theclip/highlight could also appear in social media, on a digitalpublisher's website, via a common streaming service, a set top box, orstreamed from a website. Aspects of the present disclosure includeidentifying these additional brand exposure moments across potentiallyhundreds or thousands of channels, websites, streaming services, socialmedia networks, and VR/AR platforms such that a more accurate mediavalue of the event sponsorship can be determined.

Video fingerprinting is generally used to compactly represent a video orportion of a video in a manner that allows for efficient searching ofother videos to identify either duplicates or slight variations of thesame video. For example, computer software may identify, extract andcompress characteristics of video data to create a digital file thatserves as a “fingerprint” of the specific video data. The precise videocharacteristics analyzed vary depending on the specific implementationand technique, with many variations being well known and used. Videocharacteristics that may be considered in some implementations in orderto generate a video fingerprint include key frame analysis, coloranalysis, and motion changes during a video sequence. Because videofingerprinting typically analyzes aspects of the actual video data asopposed to employing a more generic file comparison technique (such ascomparing hash codes of files), fingerprinting can be used to identifyperceptually similar videos where a copy of the video may be at adifferent resolution, cropped, blurred, had text or other contentoverlaid over a portion of the video, and/or been otherwise modified. Acommon existing use of video fingerprints is in the field of DigitalRights Management (“DRM”) in order for content owners (such as filmstudios or publishers) to identify when files containing theircopyrighted video content are uploaded to video sharing websites orother file sharing networks accessible via the Internet.

In one embodiment of the present disclosure, a computing system mayanalyze a live event broadcast for brand exposures (e.g., instanceswhere a company name, logo or other visual indicator is present in aframe of broadcasted video). For each video sequence that contains abrand exposure, the system may create a digital fingerprint to identifya portion of the video in which the brand exposure occurs. The systemmay subsequently search video data of potentially hundreds or thousandsof subsequent broadcasts across different channels, websites, streamingservices, or social media networks to identify occurrences of thedigital fingerprint. In this manner, when excerpts, replays, orhighlights of this live event broadcast are later included in a newsprogram, sports highlight show, or other broadcast, the system mayidentify these occurrences based on the fingerprint and without a morecomputationally expensive analysis of the video data. For instance,aspects of the present disclosure result in detection of logos from anevent in large collections of video data without necessarily requiringsearching image data of individual frames of each broadcast fordepiction of a logo (including size relative to entire frame, duration,and/or location), and without necessarily relying on closed captioningor other inefficient and/or inaccurate searching alternatives.

In some embodiments, once a fingerprint match is identified in asubsequent broadcast, the system may record information such as thechannel (or URL), program name, number of viewers, commercial cost(e.g., the cost for an advertiser to run a 30-second commercial duringthe program), and the time frame from the original live broadcast thatis featured. This information can then be aggregated across all of theprograms having fingerprint matches to determine an overall oraggregated media value of brand exposure related to the event, which mayinclude not only the value of the live event broadcast, but alsosubsequent exposure during news programs, highlight programs, websites,streaming services, or social media networks. This information may thenbe provided to various stakeholders with the ability to view detailregarding the channels, programs, viewers, commercial values, and timeframes that contributed to the full media value.

While video fingerprinting may be used to identify replays, reposts orrepeat broadcasts of clips as discussed herein, other aspects of thepresent disclosure relate to analyzing original image or video data thathas not been previously analyzed in a different form in order toidentify sponsor's logos or advertisements (among other features).Accordingly, while some embodiments of the present disclosure may employvideo fingerprinting, advantages provided by many aspects of the presentdisclosure have utility apart from any use of video fingerprinting, andvideo fingerprinting methods may not be implemented at all in someembodiments.

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram of an illustrative method 100 that may beimplemented by a computing system, such as computing system 302 thatwill be described below, in order to identify broadcasts or other videosthat include a logo or other image object of interest that wasoriginally included in an earlier video. The illustrative method beginsat block 102, where the computing system receives video data of anevent. The event may be, for example, a live television broadcast (whichmay first have been stored as digital video data) of a sporting event,press conference, or political event, among others. The event may be onein which a certain company or brand paid a venue or other entity inorder to place an advertisement in the event venue, such as a sign orbanner in a stadium or arena. The sign or banner may include, forexample, the company's name and/or logo. While television broadcasts areoften used as an example herein, aspects of the present disclosurerelated to analyzing television broadcast data are also applicable toInternet-distributed video. For example, a broadcast network may includenot only a traditional television broadcast network utilizing cable orsatellite distribution, but also services that distribute over-the-top(“OTT”) content via the Internet without being transmitted via cable,satellite or other traditional television content distribution mediums.

Next, at block 104, the computing system analyzes frames of the event'svideo data to identify the frames or video sequences within the videodata in which the logo, brand name, or other advertisement content isdepicted or captured in the frame. Depending on the embodiment, keyframes may be determined using known methods in order to avoid analyzingevery frame of the video, while still having a high likelihood thatinstances of a logo being visible in the video will be identified basedon key frame analysis. In some embodiments, a specific company's logomay be the only logo that the system is configured to identify for agiven event, while in other embodiments a potentially large library oflogos (and variations of logos as they appear in the master livebroadcast) may each be searched for within a given video frame. Forexample, one or more image classifiers may have been previously trainedusing hundreds or thousands of different company logos, such that theone or more classifiers can identify which, if any, of those logosappear in a given image or video frame.

Computing systems configured to perform object recognition often rely onclassifiers (sometimes also referred to as “models” or “classifiermodels”). Classifiers are often probabilistic models that are created orgenerated using machine learning techniques. In the context of objectrecognition in digital images, classifiers may be used to determine alikelihood that a particular image object (e.g., a visual representationof an object, or a company logo) is included or depicted in an image.Various image object recognition techniques are known in the field, andthe present disclosure is not specific to any one object recognitiontechnique to identify logos or other objects. While various suchtechniques will be known to one of ordinary skill in the art, a briefoverview is provided below. As used herein, a neural network maygenerally be considered to be one type of classifier, and a classifierin turn may be considered to be one type of machine learning model. Aswill be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, while neuralnetworks are sometimes used herein as an example classifier, other typesof classifiers or classification models may be used instead unlessotherwise noted in a specific embodiment. Furthermore, the term “machinelearning model” is intended herein to refer to a large class of modelsthat employ any of a variety of machine learning techniques, and is notlimited to a neural network or other specific implementation approachthat may be used as an example in describing specific embodimentsherein.

An image object that is the subject of a classifier that has beencreated or trained to identify that particular image object may bereferred to as a “target image object.” For example, a target imageobject may be a visual representation of a company's logo, and aclassifier may be generated specifically to identify at least that logo.In some embodiments, the target image object may generally refer to aclass or group of related image objects that may be identified using aparticular classifier. In the above example, the target image object maybe related to any of one or more different styles or versions of thesame logo of the company (e.g., logos of the company from differentdecades), and the classifier may be trained or created to identify oneor more (or all) of those different logos. As will be described in moredetail below, a given target object or class of objects may represent acombination of a logo and a real-world location or source of the logo.For example, a classifier may be trained to identify that a specificlogo appeared on the padding of a football goalpost, as opposed to onlyidentifying that the logo appeared. Accordingly, in some embodiments,the same logo may be associated with different target image objectsdepending on where in an arena or other venue the logo appears in agiven image or video frame.

Classifiers configured to identify a target image object may be createdor trained using exemplar images that are known to include that targetimage object. Specifically, in creating or training a model, eachexemplar image is processed to identify features of the image. Thesefeatures are usually some measurable property or characteristic of thetarget image object. Examples of types of features used in objectrecognition include scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) featuresand speeded-up-robust features (SURF). Because the exemplar images areknown to include the target image object, the features of the exemplarimages are then associated with a probability of indicating that thetarget image object is included in the image. For example, if most orall of the exemplar images includes a certain feature, the presence ofthat feature in another, unclassified image may indicate a highlikelihood that the unclassified image includes the target image object.Further, the absence of that feature in an unclassified image mayindicate a lower likelihood that that unclassified image includes thetarget image object.

With further reference to block 104, in some embodiments, a previouslytrained image classifier may return a certain probability that a givenframe of the video includes a target image object (such as a specificlogo), and the system may deem those frames associated with aprobability that satisfies a certain threshold likelihood (e.g., 75%) asincluding the target image object. On the other hand, the system maydeem images associated with a probability or likelihood that does notsatisfy the threshold likelihood as not including the target imageobject. In some embodiments in which a number of different companies'logos are searched by the system, one or more classifiers may provide aseparate probability for each of the different companies and/or for eachdifferent logo. When a match is found, the computing system maydetermine and store various information, such as the size of the logowithin the frame and where in the captured scene the logo appears (e.g.,on a billboard). Based on an analysis of multiple frames that make upsequences of video, the computing system may further determine aduration (or a start and end time) during which the logo is visible inthe video.

At block 106, the computing system may create a digital videofingerprint (which may be stored by the system as a digital file)representing the one or more identified frames (or video sequences, insome embodiments) in which one of the logos or other objects of interestis depicted. For example, if the system determined that a givencompany's logo appeared from the time ranges of 1:03-1:12 and from2:05-2:46 in the event's video data, the computing system may create twoor more video fingerprints that represent frames and/or sequences ofvideo data in these time ranges. As discussed above, a number oftechniques are known for creating a digital fingerprint representingvideo data, and such techniques need not be described in detail herein.In embodiments in which a number of different companies' logos wereidentified in the video data, the computing system may separately groupfingerprints created for frames in which each company's logo appeared.For example, the computing system may generate and store one set offingerprints for the pairing of the event and a first company, and asecond set of fingerprints for the pairing of the event and the secondcompany.

Next, at block 108, the computing system may receive or retrieve videodata of broadcasts subsequent to the event. The video data, in someembodiments, may be recorded broadcasts of television programming thataired for some time range subsequent to the event, such as for a day orweek following the event. In some embodiments, the computing system mayreceive or retrieve the video data from a data source that digitallyrecords all programming that airs on each of a number of differentchannels, such as a service that operates a large number of digitalvideo recorders (DVRs) tuned to record different channels from one ormore satellite broadcast feeds. In some embodiments, only programsand/or channels that have been previously determined to be likely toinclude portions of the event video may be retrieved. For example,according to some embodiments, if the event is a sporting event, theprograms retrieved may be limited to programming from sports channels,sports shows, and nightly news programs, which may each be likelysources of sports highlights or video clips. In other embodiments,substantially all programming broadcast in a given region and/ornationwide may be analyzed, potentially in an order of priority suchthat programs or channels more likely to include portions of the eventvideo are retrieved and analyzed first.

In some embodiments, video data other than television broadcasts mayadditionally or alternatively be retrieved at block 108. For example,video data uploaded to or otherwise accessible from social mediaservices, file sharing services, and/or computer network-based videoservices (which each may be accessed via websites and/or dedicatedapplications) may be retrieved and analyzed. In such embodiments, thecomputing system may be configured to determine whether video clips orhighlights from the event appear in social media or Internet-accessiblevideo, among other sources. Additionally, images (in addition to orinstead of video) uploaded to social media websites or other Internetsources may be analyzed and considered when determining an aggregatedmedia value, as will be described in more detail below. For example, theestimated reach and engagement level for a given post, video, or photoon social media may be taken into account in determining a media valueassociated with the post, video, or photo.

At block 110, the computing system searches the subsequent video datafor fingerprint matches with respect to the previously generated videofingerprints that correspond to portions of the original video thatinclude a logo or other object of interest. As will be appreciated,block 108 and 110 may be repeated for various subsequent videos (e.g.,as each individual television program is retrieved at block 108, it maybe searched at block 110), rather than all subsequent programs searchedat a single time. Known techniques may be used (including key framedeterminations) to efficiently determine whether a given fingerprint isa match with any portion of the subsequent video. As discussed above, afingerprint match may indicate perceptually similar videos where thesubsequent video may be at a different resolution, cropped, blurred, hadtext or other content overlaid over a portion of the video, and/or beenotherwise modified. In some embodiments, the confidence level of afingerprint match may be increased by subsequently performing imageanalysis on a frame of the video to detect the original logo or otherobject of interest (similar to the process discussed above with respectto analyzing the original video). Such additional analysis may be usefulin instances where the original video may have been modified beforebeing included in the subsequent broadcast. For example, the system maydetermine confidence levels based on how many pixels the original videoportion and subsequent video portion have in common (or pixels that aresubstantially the same, accounting for slight variations), then based onthis confidence level may perform image recognition to verify that asimilar video frame is in fact a positive match. Once one or morefingerprint matches are determined, the illustrative method may proceedto the blocks described below with respect to FIG. 2.

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of an illustrative method 200 that may beimplemented by a computing system, such as system 302 that will bedescribed below, in order to determine an aggregate media valueassociated with an event's brand exposure based in part on videofingerprint matching. While FIG. 2 will be described with respect tofingerprint matching, not all embodiments of the present disclosureutilize fingerprint matching or video fingerprints generally, and thedescriptions of fingerprint matching herein are not intended to belimiting. For example, in some embodiments, other computer visiontechniques and machine learning methods may be utilized instead of or inaddition to fingerprint matching in association with determiningaggregate media value, as will be described further below.

The illustrative method 200 begins at block 202, which may beimplemented following block 110 discussed above with reference toFIG. 1. At block 202, the computing system may store time range andother broadcast information associated with one or more fingerprintmatches that were previously determined at block 110 described above.For example, the system may store, in one embodiment, an indication ofthe channel, program name, number of viewers, 30-second commercial cost,and the time frame(s) in the original event video that appeared in thesubsequent video (e.g., “QXTW; Sports Rundown; 290,000; $32,100;23:12-23:23; 24:15-24:25”). The viewership numbers and cost for acommercial airing during the program may be determined from third-partydata sources, which may be associated with advertising companies,industry publications, and/or channel operators themselves. The systemmay determine a 30-second commercial cost based on how many viewers werewatching the program during a particular minute or second (instead offor a whole program) in embodiments in which more granular viewershipdata is available. In embodiments in which Internet-viewable videos areanalyzed, the number of users that have viewed a video may be extractedfrom a webpage in which the video is embedded. In some embodiments, thecomputing system may additionally store information regarding which logoor other object of interest was identified, and may store the data in amanner (such as relational database) by which the system may easilygroup all appearances of a given logo from a given event in each of anumber of subsequent broadcasts.

At block 204, the computing system determines, for each broadcast inwhich at least one fingerprint was matched, a media value associatedwith the exposure of the logo on that broadcast. In some embodiments,the media value may be based at least in part on the actual cost thatwould have been incurred by the company owning the logo had that companypaid for a commercial during the given television program. In otherembodiments, the media value may be estimated based on the number ofviewers of the program, the time slot and channel that the program wasbroadcast, viewer demographic data, and/or other factors. In someembodiments, any appearance of a certain company's logo on a broadcast,even if only during a short five second highlight clip, may beconsidered to be worth the cost of the shortest commercial slot duringthat program. In other embodiments, the computing system may discount orotherwise determine the media value to be less than the cost of acommercial based on factors such as the length of time that the logo isonscreen during the program and/or the prominence of the logo within theprogram while it is visible (e.g., the percentage of space that the logooccupies in a frame of the video).

Lastly, at block 206, the computing system may determine an aggregatedmedia value associated with each pairing of an event and a logo (orother object of interest) based at least in part on the individualprogram-specific (or video-specific) media values determined at block204. For example, an aggregated media value in one instance mayrepresent the marketing value that a company obtained overall forplacing an in-venue advertisement at a sporting arena for a given gameor other event. This total value may represent or capture not only thevalue for the exposure gained during a live broadcast of the game, butalso subsequent value obtained through later exposure when the company'sin-venue advertisement can be seen in a highlight of the game thatappears on other television programs, social media posts, user-generatedvideos, and/or other sources. In some embodiments, the aggregated valuemay be a sum of the various media values determined for a given paringof an event and a logo, plus the media value for the initial livebroadcast of the event.

Once an aggregated media value for a given brand exposure has beendetermined, the computing system may provide this value to one or morethird parties, such as via a secure webpage, an application programminginterface (API), an email, a printed report, a mobile application,and/or other method or medium. The recipient may include a rights holderwith respect to the advertising space at the event (e.g., an arena or asports team), a sponsor or rights holder in the logo (e.g., the companythat paid for the original in-venue advertisement), and/or an auditor orother service provider that works with marketers, advertisers, venues,or a specific industry associated with the advertisement. Theinformation may be provided in an interactive manner, such that therecipient may select from various level of detail or aggregation, andmay filter or search by channel, program, time slots, etc. in order tosee specific data (such as that determined and stored at blocks 202 and204 described above).

FIG. 3 illustrates a general architecture of a computing environment300, according to some embodiments. As depicted in FIG. 3, the computingenvironment 300 may include a computing system 302. The generalarchitecture of the computing system 302 may include an arrangement ofcomputer hardware and software components used to implement aspects ofthe present disclosure. The computing system 302 may include many more(or fewer) elements than those shown in FIG. 3. It is not necessary,however, that all of these generally conventional elements be shown inorder to provide an enabling disclosure.

As illustrated, the computing system 302 includes a processing unit 306,a network interface 308, a computer readable medium drive 310, aninput/output device interface 312, an optional display 326, and anoptional input device 328, all of which may communicate with one anotherby way of a communication bus 336. The processing unit 306 maycommunicate to and from memory 314 and may provide output informationfor the optional display 326 via the input/output device interface 312.The input/output device interface 312 may also accept input from theoptional input device 328, such as a keyboard, mouse, digital pen,microphone, touch screen, gesture recognition system, voice recognitionsystem, or other input device known in the art.

The memory 314 may contain computer program instructions (grouped asmodules or components in some embodiments) that the processing unit 306may execute in order to implement one or more embodiments describedherein. The memory 314 may generally include RAM, ROM and/or otherpersistent, auxiliary or non-transitory computer-readable media. Thememory 314 may store an operating system 318 that provides computerprogram instructions for use by the processing unit 306 in the generaladministration and operation of the computing system 302. The memory 314may further include computer program instructions and other informationfor implementing aspects of the present disclosure. For example, in oneembodiment, the memory 314 may include a user interface module 316 thatgenerates user interfaces (and/or instructions therefor) for displayupon a computing system, e.g., via a navigation interface such as abrowser or application installed on the computing system.

In some embodiments, the memory 314 may include a video analysis module320, which may be executed by the processing unit 306 to performoperations according to various embodiments described herein (e.g., theoperations described with reference to FIG. 1 above). The memory 314 mayfurther include a media valuation module 322, which may be executed bythe processing unit 306 to perform other operations according to variousembodiments described herein (e.g., the operations described withreference to FIG. 2 above). The modules 320 and/or 322 may access thedata stores 330, 332 and/or 334 in order to retrieve data describedabove and/or store data. Each of these data stores may be part of thecomputing system 302, remote from the computing system 302, and/or maybe a network-based service. The classifier data store 330 may storetrained models and data used for the classification of video frames orimages to identify image objects appearing within the images. The videodata store 332 may store digital video data, such as that recorded to aDVR, of various television broadcasts and/or other video files. Themedia cost data store 334 may store information regarding the cost ofcommercials during various television programs or time slots, viewerdemographic data, and/or other data used to determine media values.

In some embodiments, the network interface 308 may provide connectivityto one or more networks or computing systems, and the processing unit306 may receive information and instructions from other computingsystems or services via one or more networks. In the example illustratedin FIG. 3, the network interface 308 may be in communication with aclient computing system 303 via the network 336, such as the Internet.In particular, the computing system 302 may establish a communicationlink 342 with a network 336 (e.g., using known protocols) in order tosend communications to the computing system 303 over the network 336.Similarly, the computing system 303 may send communications to thecomputing system 302 over the network 336 via a wired or wirelesscommunication link 340.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that the computing systems 302and 303 may be any of a number of computing systems including, but notlimited to, a laptop, a personal computer, a personal digital assistant(PDA), a hybrid PDA/mobile phone, a mobile phone, a smartphone, awearable computing device, an electronic book reader, a digital mediaplayer, a tablet computer, a gaming console or controller, a kiosk, anaugmented reality device, another wireless device, a set-top or othertelevision box, one or more servers, and the like.

Additional Features for Determining Sponsorship Value from Social Media

As discussed above, in some embodiments, a media sponsorship value maybe determined that includes consideration of the aggregated media valueof images and/or video on social media that are determined to includedepiction of a sponsored object (e.g., a company logo). In someembodiments, the value determined may represent a media cost equivalent,which may be the amount of money that a company would have had to spendto purchase advertising space within the given social network or otherlocation in which the image containing the company logo is posted by auser (or is otherwise added to the social media network in a mannerother than a paid advertisement).

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of an illustrative method 400 that may beimplemented by a computing system, such as system 302, for determiningan overall sponsor valuation based on images and/or video appearing insocial media posts. At block 402, the system may identify one or moresocial media posts that included an imbedded or linked image or video inwhich an object of interest appears, such as company branding, a logo,or other sponsored content. The image or video may be identified toinclude the object of interest based on the various methods describedabove.

Next, at block 404, the system may determine a media cost equivalent ofthe one or more identified posts based on reach and/or engagement dataassociated with the posts, which may be accessible via the social mediaservice or other provider of the service through which the post waspublished. As one example with respect to television or other videocontent in which advertisements can be purchased, the cost to purchase a30 second advertisement may be multiplied by the amount of time that thebrand was displayed in the video, and further adjusted based on actualviewership numbers when available. In situations in which actualviewership numbers or “reach” data is available (such as on a videosharing website in which the number of page views or video views islisted on a webpage or is otherwise available), the number of views thatan image or video receives may be considered in the sponsorship valuedetermination. Additionally or alternatively, user engagement may beconsidered (such as the number of users who selected a link or URLassociated with an image or video posted to a social network or otherlocation).

For example, a media cost equivalent may be determined, in someembodiments, based on a blend of CPEE (Cost-Per-Engagement-Equivalent)and CPME (Cost-Per-Thousand-Equivalent) if a given sponsor were topurchase the media exposure that was instead gained through other means(such as users posting media to social networks). Depending on theembodiment and the available data, an average CPME for the network as awhole may be used (e.g., the average CPME for advertisements on aspecific social network), or more granular CPME data based on keywordsmay be used. For example, the CPME may be targeted for specificpopulations, such as sport enthusiasts or enthusiasts for specificsports, instead of a general population. For posts that do not haveexact reach metrics or viewership data, a greater weight may be appliedto engagement numbers. Some social media networks may provide actualreach data (e.g., data regarding the number of users who in fact vieweda post) to the public, while others may provide this information only tothe owner of the account that posted the media. Accordingly, in someembodiments, accounts that are owned by the sponsor or its affiliate(which may be referred to herein as a sponsor “owned and operated”account) may have actual reach data available, whereas similar mediafrom the same event that is posted by a third party may not have actualreach data available. In one example, a formula may be applied asfollows:

Media cost equivalent=([Engagements*CPEE]*w ₁)+([Reach*CPME]*w ₂).

In applying the above formula for a non-owned and operated account orwhere actual reach data is otherwise not available or not reliable, theweighting w₁ with respect to engagement may be set relatively high (suchas 90% or 0.9), while the weighting w₂ with respect to reach may be setrelatively low (such as 10% or 0.1). For example, a sponsor may be mostinterested in the number of users who actually saw the brand depicted inthe media, but the system may need to estimate this number based on“likes,” responses, click-through numbers, or other engagement numbersas a proxy when view numbers are not available or not reliable. Asdescribed herein, the percentage or total media values attributable todifferent sets or types of accounts may be determined and displayed to auser. For example, a first value may be determined for “owned andoperated” accounts, and another for non- “owned and operated” accounts.For example, a sponsor may be interested to know that organic socialmedia sharing of a video clip accounted for a certain percentage ordollar value of the total media cost equivalent, as opposed to views ofsocial media that the sponsor itself posted for viewing by users alreadyfollowing or subscribing to the brand owner's social media account(s).

A variation of the above media cost equivalent formula for a videohosted on a video sharing service may be, for example:

Media cost equivalent=(Views*[Network Cost-per-View]*[ReachWeight]*[30-second cost equivalent])+(Engagement*[NetworkCost-per-Engagement]* [Engagement Weight]).

In some embodiments, the system may provide indicators of audienceoverlap in a report or user interface. The system may determine audienceoverlap as determined by users that engaged with owned posts incomparison with users that engaged with non-owned posts related to aspecific rights holder. For example, overlap of users that engaged withowned posts and non-owned posts may range from zero to nine percent ofthe total number of users that engaged with either owned posts ornon-owned posts. Thus, rights holders are demonstrating audienceextension, such as social media amplification, to partners by capturingthe value created from non-team owned accounts. In some systems, theaverage overlap of sub-categories with team-owned accounts can provideuseful insights to sponsors or rights holders. For example, for a sport,such as basketball, some team accounts have greater overlap with fanaccounts and official league accounts than with general sports highlightaccounts. As additional examples according to research in associationwith certain embodiments: overlap of users that engaged with owned postsand fan accounts (such as team specific fan accounts) may correspond tofive percent of the total number of engagement users; overlap of usersthat engaged with owned posts and official league accounts maycorrespond to seven percent of the total number of engagement users; andoverlap of users that engaged with owned posts and general sportsaccounts may correspond to three percent of the total number ofengagement users.

Once a media cost equivalent is determined for a given instance (such asfor a post on a social media network), the percentage of this totalmedia cost equivalent to attribute to a given brand or sponsor may bedetermined at block 406. In some embodiments, the percentage to apply tothe total media cost equivalent may generally correlate with howprominent the branding is in the image, video or other media. Thispercent attribution (which may be referred to as a “stick score,”according to one embodiment) for a given photo or video may be based onvarious factors, such as size, clarity, duration, number of appearances,number of other logos, and position of the sponsor branding/logo inrelation to the full image or video. Once the percentage attribution isdetermined, the overall sponsor valuation may be determined at block408. For example, if the media cost equivalent at block 404 isdetermined to be $10,000, and the percentage to attribute to the givenbrand is determined at block 406 to be 50%, the overall sponsorvaluation for the given brand may be determined to be $5,000 at block408 (i.e., $10,000 multiplied by a 0.5 discount off the full value).

In some embodiments, the system may generate various spreadsheets,summary views, dashboards, reports, user interfaces and/or other outputintended for consumption by a sponsor or other user. The data in oneembodiment may include, for each of a number of different URLs, videos,images or social media posts: an indication whether the account is ownedand operated by the brand; a posting date; the brand name associatedwith the logo or other branding identified in the media; a “brandsource” indicated the real world location or item on which the brand wasdepicted in the media (e.g., “logo on the hardwood floor of arena,” or“promotional bobblehead giveaway”); duration of video; 30 second costequivalent; social media platform or source; number of views; number ofengagements; the full media value; the “media value percentage score” orprominence of the branding, to be applied as a percentage of the fullmedia value; the adjusted media value based on media value percentagescore; and/or the channel or account.

In some embodiments in which the system analyzes image and video toidentify depiction of a specific physical item on which brandingappears, the system may provide suggestions to the brand owner orsponsor regarding placement of its branding or logo on such items. Forexample, consider a situation in which a company sponsors a promotion ata baseball game in which a bobblehead doll is given to fans inattendance, and the bobblehead includes a logo of the company. When thesystem tracks social media sharing of images and videos that fans createdepicting the doll, the system may determine in each video and imagethat includes the doll whether the company logo is visible, effectivelydetermining both whether the doll is identified and whether the logo isidentified. The system may then provide suggestions to the sponsor, suchas “Your logo is too low on the doll because it is out of frame orotherwise not viewable in 35% of social media posts that include atleast a portion of the doll in an image or video.”

In some embodiments, when the system determines a valuation for aparticular video with respect to a particular brand that appears in thevideo, a decay factor, burn out, or other diminishing factor may beapplied during the time period in which the brand appears in the video.For example, if a given brand appears in a 15 minute video for a totalof 5 minutes, the first minute of exposure may be worth more than thesecond minute, which in turn may be worth more than the third minute.

In some embodiments, the system applies a media value percentagemethodology. The methodology can compare a brand exposures' qualityrelative to a fully branded exposure based on one or more factors todetermine a percentage of the full media cost equivalent to attribute toa given brand exposure. Accordingly, the media value percentage mayrepresent the percentage of the full media cost equivalent to attributeto a given brand exposure. The media value percentage can be based onfactors including clarity, prominence, visibility, size, placement, andshare of voice. The clarity factor may correspond to the clarity of thesponsor's exposure (such as how clearly visible, in-focus and/or legiblea sponsor logo appears). The prominence factor may correspond toprominence of a sponsor's logo in the context of the media item. In someembodiments, a sponsor's logo that is digitally overlaid on the image orvideo (only someone watching the video or looking at a photo would seeit) may receive a higher prominence weight than a sponsor's logo that isphysically present at the sporting logo (e.g., someone physically at thesporting event would see it). In other embodiments, a sponsor logo thatis physically present may receive a higher prominence than a digitaloverlay since there are additional people physically at the sportingevent that would see the logo. The visibility factor may correspond tothe percentage of exposure in a media item. The size factor maycorrespond to the size of a logo relative to the frame of the mediaitem, such as the entire frame of the media item. The placement factormay correspond to the position of the logo. The share of voice factormay correspond to a quantity of signage locations that are in view. Forexample, a quantity of other sponsor objects can be determined in theimage or video. Thus, a single logo in an image or video may receive ahigher media value percentage than an image or video with many otherlogos also present in the image or video. In other embodiments, fewer oradditional factors may be considered by the computing system whendetermining the media value percentages for a logo.

FIG. 5A illustrates sample media analysis data that may be determinedand/or stored by the computing system 302 in accordance with aspects ofthe present disclosure. As illustrated, table 502 includes, for each ofa number of objects (identified by a combination of the sponsor and thelocation/source), the number of social media posts that the objectappeared in, the estimated reach of number of people that viewed theobject in the relevant media, the number of users who engaged with thecontent (e.g., selected a link to view more information, reposted themedia, commented on the media, etc., which may be estimated), the “mediavalue percentage score” as discussed elsewhere herein, and a total mediavaluation.

As illustrated, the objects in each row of table 502 are not simply aspecific sponsor or logo, but indicate a specific real-world location orsource of the identified sponsorship. For example, Sponsor 2 has placeda logo or other advertisement on at least the ticket stubs, hardwoodfloor, interview backdrop, and rafters. Each of these branding andsource combinations may have been separately identified and analyzed bythe computing system using various methods described herein. Table 504includes similar data with respect to video content, which also includesan indication of the total seconds of exposure across viewers as well asthe number of views.

As shown in FIG. 5B, the full media value determined by the system for agiven brand over a given time range may be broken down in a number ofways. As illustrated, the full media value is shown groupedalternatively by channel (e.g., television, social media, streamingvideo, digital media), by sponsor, and by network provider (e.g.,specific social networks, video hosting services, or other services thatenable posting of messages, videos or photos). Other options forbreaking down the valuations, in some embodiments, may include listingthe portions of the valuation attributable to specific accounts, such asgeneral sports topic accounts, league accounts, team accounts, or playeraccounts (not illustrated).

In some embodiments, in addition to analyzing the content of socialmedia posts themselves, the system may follow URL links included in theposts to assess sponsor value of the linked page or file. For example,the system may use a number of methodologies to estimate the amount oftraffic and/or engagement associated with the linked web page or otherlinked content. A media value determined for the linked page or othercontent (which may be based at least in part on keyword analysis and/oranalysis of images and videos imbedded within the page) may then beincluded by the system in the total media value determinations discussedherein.

The system may, in some embodiments, create and/or access a data storethat includes information categorizing each of a number of socialnetworks and/or specific social network accounts by various tags andcategories. For example, the categorization may include general topics(such as “Sports”) all the way down to a more granular level, such asleague, team, player, member of press, sponsor owned and operated, etc.For example, a given social network account owned by a givenprofessional athlete may be associated with or tagged as the specificsport, the specific team, the specific player, etc. These categories ortags may then operate as filters or criteria when generating segmentedreports of media valuation by category or tag. The system may create theinformation in this database in an automated matter, such as byidentifying keywords in the account's title or name, the summary of theaccount (which may be a heading, tagline, introductory paragraph, “aboutme” section, etc.), and the content of posts, and/or based on automatedanalysis of media posted or linked to by the account.

Features implemented by the system, in some embodiments, may includesupport for dynamic sponsorship pricing. The system may, for example,include price benchmarking services in order to provide valuations toboth sides of the sponsorship market (e.g., both sponsors and rightsholders), including assisting in setting sponsorship prices at the levelof an arena, team, league or other level. The system may provide aprogrammatic sponsorship marketplace that utilizes real time bidding toset sponsorship prices.

As stadiums develop more dynamic advertisement methods with respect totheir signage within the stadium, more real time bidding foradvertisement space will become viable. For example, a given stadium mayhave potentially dozens of different sponsor and location combinations(e.g., “Company A advertised on tunnel,” “Company B advertised on shotclock,” “Company C advertised on hardwood floor,” etc.). Some of thesespaces may be static physical advertisements, while others arerotational signs (changing advertisements displayed at set intervals)and others are spaces for digital insertion of an advertisement duringtelevision broadcast (e.g., a green screen, existing signage that couldhave sponsor data overlaid onto it, or any other physical objectdepicted in an image or video). In some embodiments, the system mayenable sponsors to bid on inventory across any selection of teams orleagues in real time.

For example, the computing system may provide a real time biddingplatform for use by teams, leagues and/or other rights holders toconnect their dynamic signage to a central bidding platform. The systemmay provide a number of private marketplaces where a list of approvedbidders (e.g. specific designated companies interested in placingadvertisements on digital signage or other dynamic signage) can bid oninventory in near-real time on a cost per 30 second basis (or otherwisetime based). This bidding platform may contain data feeds from a numberof different games and have triggers that bidders can setup so a bid isautomatically placed on their behalf in the system when certainconditions are met. For example, by selecting various selectable optionsin a user interface, the sponsor could set up rules in the system suchas “Raise my bid by [$x] (or place a bid) if a game is in the last 2minutes of the 4th quarter and the score is either tied or within 3points.” Other examples would include a sponsor selecting to raise orplace a bid (with a corresponding dollar amount) when an individualplayer is about to break a record, when a team ranked in the top fiveteams in a league is playing another top five team, etc. Accordingly, asa digital sign in a stadium updates which advertisement is shown (suchas every 30 seconds), the displayed advertisement may be dynamicallyselected as the advertisement of the highest bidder at that momentaccording to the real time bidding platform.

The system may track advertisement performance in real time to determinepacing. For example, the system may collect actual cost data fromsponsors and/or rights holders and be able to demonstrate how a campaignis pacing, whether it is on track to over or under deliver relative towhat a sponsor paid, and/or other real time or near-real timeinformation throughout a sponsorship campaign.

In some embodiments, for each instance of brand exposure that the systemidentifies in media captured in association with sponsorship at a game,the system may determine information such as the following. The systemmay also look for trends and anomalies in this and other data, and/orhow each data point affects media value.

-   -   What time/quarter of the game did it take place?    -   Was that day a Home, Away, or no game day?    -   Were there any major events that day?    -   Did the game have a close score or high score differential?    -   Was it in action or out of action?

The system may, in some embodiments, provide analysis taking intoaccount the differences between home and away games. For example, foreach home game, the system may determine the media value generated bythe opposing team relative to the home team. Opposing team media valuemay be based at least in part on a local regional broadcast and thesocial media accounts associated with the opposing team (and potentiallyits fans).

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of an illustrative method 600 for analyzingimage or video data to determine the sport, team name, home or away gamestatus, and sponsor information associated with an underlying game eventcaptured in the image or video. Illustrative method 600 may beimplemented by a computing system, such as computing system 302described above. The method 600 begins at block 602, where input mediais received by the computing system. The input media may be, dependingon the embodiment, image data, video data, or other content thatincludes image or video data referenced in or embedded within thecontent. For example, the input data may include a social media postretrieved via a social media network or social media service (where apost may include an embedded or linked photo or video, as well as textor other content). The input data could alternatively be video data froma broadcast source, such as a streaming video source or digitallyrecorded broadcast video from a satellite or cable television source.For each item of input media received or retrieved (e.g., each image oreach video), the illustrative method may proceed to the blocks describedbelow. Thus, while the illustrative method 600 will be described belowwith respect to a single pass through the illustrated blocks withrespect to a single item of image or video content, it will beappreciated that the method may be repeated for many different items ofinput media. Additionally. as will be appreciated by a person havingordinary knowledge of the use of classification models, pre-processingof the input media may occur before providing associated input to thegiven classification models. For example, frames of an input video at agiven sample rate may be extracted, and features may be determined foreach image or video in order to provide the given features as input tothe appropriate classification model described below.

Blocks 604, 606 and 608 may collectively be considered the sportidentification blocks of FIG. 6. While the sport identification blocksillustrated in FIG. 6 include scene classification, objectclassification, and sport classification, it will be appreciated thatmore or fewer blocks may be included in association with sportidentification in other embodiments. At scene classification block 604,the computing system may provide the input media as input to neuralnetworks or other classification models that have been trained toidentify a number of different scenes. Each scene or scene type may beconsidered to be a class for purposes of the classification models.Providing the input media as input to the scene classification modelsmay collectively result in an indication of a confidence level withrespect to each of the various predefined scenes, where the confidencelevel for a given scene indicates the model's confidence that the givenscene is depicted in the input media (such as the input image or video).Example scenes may be, in one embodiment, a stadium with a baseballfield, a domed football arena, a soccer stadium, a swimming pool andstands, etc. In some embodiments, the models may be configured toidentify a predefined number of different scenes, and those scenes maybe grouped into subsets that are associated with a given sport.Accordingly, for each sport that the computing system is configured toidentify, there may be one or more associated scenes identified in adata store, where each scene may have an associated classifier orclassification model that may be used to determine whether the givenscene is depicted in specific input media.

At block 606, the computing system may pass the input media toclassification models that are configured to identify specific objectsdepicted in image or video data. The objects for the purposes of block606 (without limiting the meaning of “object” elsewhere in the presentdisclosure, such as in the context of identifying logo objects) may bevarious real-world objects that are used in any of a number of differentsports. Example objects may include a basketball, a football, abasketball stanchion, football goalposts, a soccer goal, a hockey goal,a tennis net, etc. As discussed above with respect to the sceneclassification models, object classifiers or classification models maybe trained to determine a confidence level regarding whether each of theobjects is depicted in given input media, and each sport have beassociated with one or more objects that tend to appear in image orvideo of the given sport. Thus, if the classification models determine ahigh confidence that a given input video depicts a football object and afootball goalpost object within the video, the computing system may beconfigured to identify that both of these objects are associated withthe sport of football. This may in turn indicate that there is a highlikelihood (based at least on the object classification results) thatthe input video is footage of a football game, particularly if objectsassociated with sports other than football have low (or zero) confidencelevels.

At block 608, the computing system may provide the input media to sportsclassification models that have each been trained with image and/orvideo data from the individual sports that the computing system isconfigured to identify in input media. For example, a neural networktrained to generally identify basketball footage may have been trainedusing video from a number of different basketball games. Such a modelmay not have a high accuracy level on its own when applied independentlyof other aspects of the present disclosure. For example, it may notcorrectly identify a basketball game highlight video with an uncommoncamera angle as relating to basketball if the training video data waslargely from a small number of standard camera angles used in televisionbroadcasts of basketball games. However, the sport classification modelsapplied at block 608 may have useful output when that output isconsidered by the computing system in combination with sceneclassification and object classification determinations at blocks 604and 606.

The models applied at sports identification blocks 604, 606 and 608 maybe combined in various ways by the computing system in order for thecomputing system to determine whether the given input media depicts asport, and if so, which sport is depicted. For example, a voting systemmay be used, where the confidence levels for each sport output at blocks604, 606 and 608 are each weighted according to the predefined weights.The weights assigned to the output of scene classification block 604,object classification block 606 and sport classification block 608, insome embodiments, may generally represent or correlate with thereliability of each model in correctly classifying media as depicting asport in previous trials. In one embodiment, each of blocks 604, 606 and608 may have its confidence level multiplied by a weight assigned tothat particular classification method, and these weighted confidencelevels for each sport may then be added together to create a weightedoverall confidence level for each sport. If one of the sports has aweighted overall confidence level above a predefined threshold, thecomputing system may determine that the given input media depicts thecorresponding sport at decision block 609. If the computing systemdetermines that a sport is depicted in the input media, the illustrativemethod 600 may proceed to the team identification blocks 610 and 612described below.

Blocks 610 and 612 may be implemented by the computing system as part ofa team identification process. As shown, the team identification processincludes performing optical character recognition (“OCR”) and stringmatching at block 610, as well as home team identification at block 612.Blocks 610 and 612 may be used in combination by the computing system toidentify a specific team (or pairing of teams) playing in the sportidentified in the input media, as well as whether a given team is thehome or away team in the given game.

At block 610, the computing system may retrieve a stored list of stringsthat are associated with teams in the specific sport that was identifiedin the sport identification blocks described above. For example, if theresult of the sport identification blocks was that a given input videois video of a professional basketball game, the computing system atblock 610 may retrieve strings such as professional basketball teamnames, names of cities with professional basketball teams, basketballteam name abbreviations, names of star players on certain teams, etc.The result of block 610, in one embodiment, may be a confidence levelfor each professional basketball team that indicates the confidencelevel that the game depicted in the given input media includes the giventeam as a participant. As one example, the output may indicate anon-zero confidence level for one or more professional basketball teams,but may indicate a zero confidence level for the majority ofprofessional basketball teams.

In some embodiments, when analyzing video data as input, the computingsystem at block 610 may look for consistent presence of the given OCRkeywords over time in the video. For example, if a given input video isten minutes long and only includes the presence of a certain team nameduring twenty seconds of the video, this may be associated with a lowconfidence level or may be ignored, in some embodiments. This may occur,for example, because a television broadcast of a basketball game mayinclude a news ticker (such as scrolling text along the bottom of thescreen) that includes team names of basketball teams other than the twoteams playing in the broadcasted game. In other instances, OCR keywordsappearing during only twenty seconds of the video could indicate thatonly part of the video contains the correct team of interest. Forexample, a “Top 10” highlights section of a news broadcast could containone or more short clips from the correct team, but the other short clipsmay not be related to the team of interest. If the computing systemdetermines that the twenty second portion of the video appears toinclude game footage for the correct team, while the remainder of thevideo is not relevant to that team, the system may ignore the remainderof the video content when performing further analysis of the video withrespect to that particular team.

Block 610 may additionally include applying a rule set associated withbroadcasts of the given sport to identify which team is the home teambased in part on the OCR results and their location on screen. Forexample, television broadcasts generally, or from a given broadcaster,may follow certain conventions in displaying the current score in agame, such as by always listing the home team above or before the “away”team (or visiting team). Thus, in one embodiment, if the OCR processrecognizes that a corner of a video consistently displays the names oftwo cities or the names of two teams, along with corresponding scores,the computing system may determine that the team identified firstonscreen is the home team in the given game.

Additional home team identification processes may be implemented by thecomputing system at block 612. Block 612 may include providing the inputmedia as input to neural networks or other classification models thathave been trained with video data of various teams' home games. Forinstance, if professional basketball was the sport identified in theinput media above (e.g., as a result of blocks 604, 606 and 608), thecomputing system at block 612 may use classification models that haveeach been trained with video of home games from a different professionalbasketball team in order to identify whether the given input dataappears to be similar to previous home game footage for any specificteam. In one embodiment, these neural networks may be trained usingvideo data, but may then be used with either video data or image data asinput. In one embodiment, block 612 may be implemented at least in partusing a convolutional neural network.

As a result of the combination of block 610 and 612, the computingsystem may determine that the input media depicts a certain pairing ofteams playing the given sport, as well as an indication of which of thetwo teams is the home team. As will be appreciated, this determinationmay include weighting confidence levels and comparing to a threshold,similar to that described above with respect to sport identification.Once the team identification processes are complete, the computingsystem may access neural networks or other machine learning models thathave been trained to identify objects associated with the relevantsponsor(s) for the given team(s) and/or the home venue, then may proceedto sponsor logo identification at blocks 614-618. While logo detectionis illustrated in FIG. 6 as occurring in three sample blocks 614, 616and 618, this is for illustrative purposes only. In many embodiments,there may be substantially more than three sponsor logo identificationmodels used.

Blocks 614, 616 and 618 may each represent implementation of a differentneural network or other classification model that has been configured toidentify whether a given sponsor logo is present in the input media. Forexample, the computing system may store, for at least some home teams ineach sport, a collection of classifiers that have each been trained witha different sponsor's logo(s), where the sponsors may be those that areknown to advertise in association with home games for the given teamidentified above. Example processes for training classifiers to detectgiven sponsors' logos or other objects of interest are described above,as well as in co-owned U.S. Pat. No. 9,613,296, entitled “Selecting aSet of Examplar Images for Use in an Automated Image Object RecognitionSystem,” which is incorporated herein by reference. Given that applyingmodels for all possible sponsors or logos capable of being recognized bythe computing system to the given input media may be computationallyexpensive, the computing system may significantly reduce the computingtime needed to perform the sponsor logo identification blocks as aresult of the above sports-identifying and team-identifying blockseffectively serving as filters to narrow which sponsors' classificationmodels to use in blocks 614-618. For example, in one embodiment, thecomputing system may store logo information and classification modelsfor the sponsors of many different teams across different sports, yetthe computing system at block 614-618 may only pass the input media tothose classification models that have been trained to identify logos ofthe sponsors for a single team (the home team identified above) or foronly two teams (the two teams identified in the specific game).

In some embodiments, two or more of the neural networks applied atblocks 614-618 may have been trained using different neural networkarchitectures, but with the same training data. A weighted sum or otherknown process may be used to determine an overall result based on theapplication of the multiple models. Various techniques known in thefields of computer vision and image processing may be employed intraining or applying the models. For example, the computing system mayuse cross correlation techniques and/or a neural network with a regionproposal network in order to localize a logo within an image, such as todetermine a bounding box around the logo. The computing system may applytracking techniques across different frames of input video, such as by atracker of the cross correlation result being used to track the boundingbox across different frames and reseeding if the tracker drops thetarget logo in a given frame.

In some embodiments, the output of the neural networks or otherclassification models used in blocks 614-618 may be both a logo andsource. For example, the source may represent the location of theidentified logo within a real-world scene depicted in the input media.Thus, a sponsor logo that is known to be both on a rafter sign in anarena and also on a basketball stanchion in that arena may have twodistinct classes that a classification model may be trained to identify(e.g., one class may be represented as <stanchion, logo1> and the otheras <rafters, logo1>).

Once one or more logo and source pairings are identified based on theoutput of the neural networks at block 619, the computing system mayproceed to the logo quality identification blocks 620 and 622. At block620, the computing system may estimate the blurring of the logo in theinput media (e.g., determining a percentage of blurring, or conversely aclarity percentage estimating how clearly the logo can be seen by ahuman viewing the input media). At block 622, the computing system mayestimate the occlusion of the logo. For example, the computing systemmay determine a percentage of the logo that is not visible in an inputimage or in one or more frames of video (e.g., the logo may be partiallyoff-screen or partially blocked by another object in the image). Thelogo name, source, blur estimation percentage and occlusion estimationpercentage may then be used by the computing system to produce a mediareport at block 630, and/or may be used as input to one or more mediavalue determinations similar to those described above. As discussedabove, the media report may include information for a number ofdifferent sponsors' logos, and may be based on the results of multiplepasses through the illustrative method 600 using different input media.In one embodiment, the media report may identify the given game (e.g.,identifying the two teams, and the location and the date of the game),and may include various information for each sequence of video in whicha logo was detected. For example, for each sequence, the media reportmay identify the logo(s) depicted in the sequence, the source orlocation of the logo, the blur percentage of the logo, and the extent ofocclusion, if any.

In some embodiments, additional methods may be used by the computingsystem to enhance or verify the determinations made at various points inillustrative method 600. As an example, the confidence levels forpositive identifications of a given home team based on analysis of theinput image or video data may be increased based on retrieved teamschedules. For instance, if the computing system determines that a givenvideo appears to be from a home game of a particular team based on thevideo analysis discussed above, the computing system may retrieve thatteam's schedule to determine whether the given team had a home game (andpotentially whether it was against an opponent recognized in the video)on the capture date of the video. The capture date of the video may bedetermined from video metadata, text or timestamp of a social networkpost that included the video, from television broadcast information,and/or other methods. If the image or video analysis is able to identifythe two teams playing in the game and the capture date of the video, butdoes not have sufficient confidence regarding which team is the hometeam, the team schedule information may be sufficient in someembodiments to determine the home team if the opponent and date matchthe schedule.

In some embodiments, to supplement and/or confirm the confidence leveldeterminations of the image and video classification models discussedabove, the computing system may use text classification models appliedto text of a social media post or page in which the image or video isembedded or linked. For example, a textual classifier may provide aconfidence score indicating how confident the model is that a particularsocial media post relates to a specific rights holder and/or sponsorbased on the text of the post. This confidence score may be weighted andcombined with a corresponding confidence score determined from the imageor video itself, as described above.

In some embodiments, to supplement and/or confirm the confidence leveldeterminations of the image and video classification models discussedabove, the computing system may use other supplemental data and/orlogic. For example, the output of a machine learning model and/orclassifier for a particular image or video may be a forty percentlikelihood that a particular object, such as a basketball stanchion,contains a particular sponsor's logo. One or more blocks of the method600 may indicate that the particular image or video is of a known venuefor a particular sports team. Thus, the supplemental logic maysupplement, confirm, or replace the output of the machine learning modeland/or classifier based on the supplemental data that a particularsponsor is associated with the particular object (e.g., the basketballstanchion identified by the machine learning model).

In some embodiments, the output of certain object classification modelsmay be used to determine the focal point of a given frame. For example,if a ball or puck is identified as an object in a given image or frame,this location of the ball or puck may be considered to be the focalpoint of the image (e.g., the location of the ball may be where thetypical viewer would be focusing when watching a basketball game). Focalpoints may be determined in other manners depending on the sport, suchas by analyzing the movement of objects across frames and/or thegrouping of objects in certain areas to estimate where the in-game“action” is currently concentrated. In some embodiments, a logoappearing near the focal point of an image or frame may be given ahigher score for purposes of media valuation than one appearing far fromthe focal point (e.g., a weight may be applied to the score based on theproximity of the logo to the frame's focal point). In some embodiments,if the focal point is not identified based on object recognition, themiddle of the frame may be used as the default focal point.

FIG. 7 is a an illustrative flow diagram for training one or moreclassifiers or classification models to identify specific objects ofinterest in video data. The illustrated method may be performed bycomputing system 302 in order to generate and store trained classifiersor other classification models or machine learning models that may thenbe used by the computing system to identify specific objects or classesof objects in subsequently provided image or video data. The illustratedmethod begins with input images and/or video being received, retrievedor selected from image and/or video data store 702. This image and/orvideo data may be a number of video files and/or image files that areknown to contain or are likely to contain objects of interest withrespect to other aspects of the present disclosure. For example, theseobjects may be logo objects, other brand sponsoring or advertisements,sporting objects (such as a basketball, basketball stanchion, etc.),and/or any other real-world or computer-augmented object appearing inimage or video data and which a user is interested in training aclassification model to detect. In embodiments in which the classifierswill be used to identify objects of interest in images or videodepicting real world sporting events, it may be desirable to select thetraining input media to depict similar real world sporting events (e.g.,selecting footage of the object(s) of interest in real world settings asopposed to training the classifiers with a clean image or video thatdepicts only the object of interest without a surrounding environmentdepicted).

As an example, if the classifiers being trained in FIG. 7 are intendedfor later use in identifying sponsor logos or sponsorship opportunitiesfor professional basketball games, the training data may include aplurality of video files recorded from television broadcasts ofprofessional basketball games and/or fan-recorded images or video fromsuch games (such as from media posted to a social network). It will beappreciated that the level of variety in what is depicted in thedifferent provided images or video files may depend on how much varietymay be expected in the appearance of the object(s) of interest indifferent images or video. For example, if an object of interest forwhich a classifier will be trained in FIG. 7 is as specific sponsor'slogo as it appears on a specific banner hanging in the rafters of aspecific arena, training videos may be selected to at least primarily bevideo of basketball games in the given arena. If a classifier willinstead be trained to identify a class of objects that appear in manydifferent arenas with a potentially different appearance in each (suchas training a classifier to identify all instances of a basketballscorer's table in any arena within a given league or for a given sport),training videos may include footage from a variety of different teams'games in a variety of different arenas.

As will be discussed below, what is considered a discrete object orclass for purposes of the training in FIG. 7 may be at least somewhatdependent on user input. For example, whether a basketball stanchionwith a sponsor logo printed on it is considered to be a single object,two objects (e.g., the stanchion itself as an object, with anothersmaller object within its bounding region that represents the logo as asecond object), or more than two objects (e.g., separate object boundingboxes being defined for each of multiple logos appearing on thestanchion) may be dependent on user input discussed below. For example,different objects or classes of objects that different classifiers maybe trained to identify in one or more embodiments could be labeled as“basketball stanchion,” “basketball stanchion with any sponsor logo,”“basketball stanchion with Company A's logo,” “Company A's logo,” “ABCArena stanchion,” etc.

The computing system at step (2) of FIG. 7 may select sample frames ofinterest from the input media. In the case of images as input, therewould not be a need to select sample frames, but in the case of video itis desirable to minimize the number of images or frames that aannotating user is requested to review in step (3). Accordingly, thecomputing system may select sample frames at a certain sampling ratethat is either predefined in the system based on a learning process fromprevious training sessions, provided as user input, and/or dependentupon the nature of the underlying video (e.g., how fast objects areexpected to change location between frames in the given video). As oneexample, the sampling rate may be one second, such that for a givenvideo file, the computing system may select sample frames at one-secondintervals (e.g., if the video contains 60 frames per second, the sampleframes may be selected as frame 1, frame 61, etc.)

At step (3), the computing system may generate a user interface fordisplay to an annotating user (such as a user directly interacting withthe computing system locally or by the user utilizing a client computingdevice in communication with the computing system via a network). Theannotating user may be a user who is associated with trainingclassification models and is tasked with indicating where objects ofinterest to that user or to another individual or entity appear intraining video sample frames. The user interface may display a sampleframe, enable the user to draw a bounding region (such as using a cursoror touch gesture to draw a rectangle or other shape) around the objectof interest, label the specific object of interest (such as from a menuof labels or classes that the user has set as the objects for whichclassifiers are being trained), and enable the user to move on to thenext sample frame when all objects of interest in the given frame arelabeled. The bounding regions may be stored in the data store 702, suchas by storing an indication of the given frame number for the givenvideo file, the pixel coordinates defining each user-selected boundingregion, and the object or class label associated with each boundingregion.

Once the annotating user has defined bounding regions for objects ofinterest in the sample frames of each video, the computing system mayapply bi-directional trackers to attempt to track the movement of theobjects between successive sample frames. For example, if the annotatinguser defined a bounding box for a certain object in frame 1 of a givenvideo and then defined a bounding box at different coordinates for thesame object in frame 61, the computing system may try to track themovement of the object across each of frames 2-60 and store estimatedbounding box information for the object with respect to each of thoseframes. Accordingly, although the annotating user may have only providedannotation information for 1/60th of the frames of a given video, asubstantially larger percentage of the frames may have object annotationdata stored after the tracking process is complete at step (5).

The computing system may then separate the annotated image and/or videodata into separate training and testing sets (not illustrated). In oneexample, 90% of the annotated media files may be used as training dataand 10% may be set aside as testing data, while other known approachesfor defining testing and training sets may be employed in otherembodiments. At step (6) the computing system may train classifiers foreach object of interest based on the annotation data marking thedepictions of the given object of interest in the training images and/orvideo. Methods of training classifiers or other machine learning modelshave been described in more detail above. The performance of theresulting classifier(s) may then be determined, which may include bothchecking the success rate in correctly identifying the object(s) ofinterest in the set-aside test data, as well as confirming that theperformance speed is acceptable.

If the performance metrics fall below a threshold level, the computingsystem may re-sample the video data and return to step (3) to receiveuser annotation data for the newly sampled frames. For example, if thesample frames were previously selected to be the frame at one secondintervals, the computing system may select additional or alternativesample frames at the half second markers (e.g., if frames 1 and 61 weretwo sample frames previously selected, new sample frames may be selectedto include frames 31 and 91). In some embodiments, the computing systemmay present a recommendation based on the performance of the classifierswhether to either (a) re-use the previous sample frame data as well asdefine new frames or (b) to discard the previous sample frames'annotation data and start over with replacement sample frames. Once theperformance of the classifier(s) as trained is acceptable, the trainedclassification models may be stored for later use.

Additional Examples

As further illustration of features implemented by the computing systemin certain embodiments, consider analysis of video from a televisionbroadcast of a car race. In one embodiment, the computing system maydetermine the exposure by each advertising source based on specificfeatures of an object captured in the video. For instance, the computingsystem may determine that the best locations for advertisement exposureare logos placed on the rear wing and nose cone of a race car based onfactors described herein (such as based on position and clarity analysisof the various logos appearing in the video, among otherconsiderations). Additionally, the computing system may determine that aspecific combination of a car design and decal placement hurtsvisibility of the decal's logo. For example, based on image analysis ofa frame of video that includes a race car, the computing system maydetermine that a logo placed on an uneven surface on the wing of the carcauses the visibility of the logo to be poor from a given viewing angleof the camera that captured the video (such by the computing systemidentifying that part of the wing causes partial occlusion of the logo).

The computing system may further determine, for example, that videofootage captured from an onboard helmet camera that occasionally appearsin the television broadcast is an under-utilized highlight type from asponsorship standpoint because there are no branding or logos that areclearly visible from this camera viewing angle. This information couldbe used to determine, for example, that sponsor decals should be addedto the driver side and/or front of any race car that will have a driverwearing an onboard helmet in a manner that will optimize viewing of thelogos from the onboard helmet camera (such as by using this informationto choose the angle and position of the decal). In some suchembodiments, the computing system may provide video data to aclassification model that has been trained to identify specificreal-world objects or portions of objects (in the above case, forexample, discrete portions of a race car such as a front hood or the topsurface of the interior dashboard), and may then determine when anobject or object portion is prominently displayed in video data withoutan accompanying brand or logo included on the object. Such adetermination may indicate that the identified object or portion of anobject is a good candidate location to place an advertisement, and thecomputing system may generate a recommendation to a rights holderidentifying the sponsorship opportunity. The recommendation may include,for example, an indication of the recommended angle to place thebranding or advertisement to be best viewed from a particular cameralocation of video analyzed by the computing system (e.g., from anonboard helmet camera, from a stationary press camera in the stands,etc.).

When a report is generated for a given rights holder, such as an arenaor sports team owner, the computing system may include an analysis of anexisting television rate card relative to the computing system's owngeneration of a “social” rate card. For example, based on the computingsystem's media value determinations from the analysis of social mediaimages and videos, the computing system may determine that the mediavalue actually generated in the previous season from social media alonematched or exceeded the television rate card previously given to thesponsor for that season. Based on this determination, the computingsystem may recommend that the rights holder double the rate card fornext season in order to capture the full value of the sponsorship whenboth social media and television exposure are considered. In someembodiments, the computing system may determine a social contributionpercentage, indicating the computing system's determined “social” ratefor a given sponsor as a percentage relative to the rate previouslyprovided to that sponsor (such as in a television rate card).

In some embodiments, the computing system may generate one or more userinterfaces that may be considered to provide a real-time “dashboard”that a rights holder, sponsor, or other user may view and interact withduring a sporting event. For example, a user may view the media value ofone or more sponsors' advertisements in real time or near real timeduring a live broadcast of a sporting event. The user may additionallyor alternatively view a stream of social media posts relevant to thesponsorship in near real time as the posts are identified by thecomputing system. In one embodiment, a user interface may include a livevideo broadcast of a particular sporting event, with graphical overlayssuperimposed over the video. These overlays may include, for instance,visual bounding boxes around sponsor logos recognized by the abovetechniques, which may follow movement of the logo from frame to frame,as well as graphical indicators of the media value for that exposure.For instance, the longer that a particular logo is on-screen, agraphical bar and/or numeric counter may represent or indicate thegradually increasing dollar value of that brand exposure using the abovetechniques.

In some embodiments, the dashboard user interface that includesgraphical overlays incorporated within or on top of the video stream mayinclude graphical indictors of media value for each of multiple sponsorsassociated with the sporting event. An example is illustrated in FIG. 8.As shown in FIG. 8, which may be one sample frame 800 from an augmentedbroadcast of a sporting event, two logos have been detected by thecomputing system (SammyAir logo 802 and Perfect Piggy logo 812), and thecomputing system has augmented the displayed video with visual boundingboxes 804 and 814 surrounding the respective detected logos. Whileillustrated as bounding boxes in FIG. 8, the detected sponsor logos orother detected advertisements present in the video data may be marked inother manners in other embodiments. For example, marking a sponsor logomay include overlaying another visual bounding shape around the sponsorlogo, an outline or tracing of the shape or outer edges of the logo,changing a brightness or contrast of the sponsor logo (e.g., visuallyhighlighting the detected logo), and/or other techniques to draw aviewer's attention to the logo. The augmented video frame furtherincludes three boxes 820, 822 and 824 in the lower right of display ofFIG. 8, which may each be associated with a different sponsor and eachinclude two bars and numeric amounts—(1) an elapsed time that a logo hasbeen on-screen in the broadcast, and (2) a media value amount for thatexposure determined by the computing system. Such a user interface maybe presented for display to a sports executive for a given team, forinstance, during a live broadcast of his team's game.

In the illustrated example frame 800, box 824 may be presented asminimized, shaded, or at an increased transparency level relative toboxes 820 and 822 to represent that the corresponding logo (“Monty'sMoney”) is not currently onscreen or in-frame. Accordingly, the time andvalue bars and numeric amounts for box 824 may be presented as staticacross the next few seconds of video, whereas the time and values inboxes 820 and 822 (which correspond to logos 802 and 812 that arecurrently onscreen) may animate or change to reflect additional time andvalue for each second or other time period that the respective logoremains visible. The computing system may provide a platform wherebyoptions are presented for the user to switch to watching differentgames, or to view social media feeds with similar displayed information.

In one embodiment, in order to generate an augmented video display suchas that illustrated in FIG. 8, the computing system may provide at leasta first frame of the incoming streaming video data to each of aplurality of classification models that are each trained to identifydepiction of one or more sponsor logos. The computing system may thenidentify a sponsor logo within at least the first frame based at leastin part on output of one or more of the plurality of classificationmodels. The system may then track an in-frame location of the sponsorlogo across a plurality of subsequent frames in which the sponsor logois depicted. The system may then augment image data in at least theplurality of subsequent frames to visually mark the sponsor logo. Thesystem may additionally determine an aggregated duration of time thatthe sponsor logo has been depicted in the video data, and determine anaggregated media value attributable to appearance of the sponsor logo inthe video data based on any of the various approaches discussed herein.In some embodiments, the aggregated media value displayed may be basedat least in part on real time ratings or viewership data associated withthe broadcast of the video data by a television network or otherbroadcast network (where such data may be received in real time from amedia measurement or media analytics service) and/or based on viewershipof portions of the video content on one or more social media networks(as detected by the computing system in various ways described herein).

Additional Features for Automated Analysis Media Items to DetermineSponsorship Value

In some embodiments, a media sponsorship value may be determined thatincludes consideration of the aggregated media value of images and/orvideo from one or more media channels that are determined to includedepiction of a sponsored object (e.g., a company logo). Example mediachannels include social media networks, broadcast networks (e.g., atelevision broadcast), streaming media networks (e.g., a streaming videoservice), and/or digital networks. The value determined may represent amedia cost equivalent, which may be the amount of money that a companywould have had to spend to purchase an approximately equivalentadvertising space in one or more media channels.

The systems and methods described herein, such as for media sponsorshipvaluation, may be intrinsically tied to computer technology because suchsolutions may use computer vision techniques. The systems that aredescribed herein may use computer vision techniques that use neuralnetworks, classifiers, machine learning, and/or object recognition andare provided with image and/or video data as input (or provided withfeatures programmatically derived from image or video data). Further,the determination of media sponsorship valuation may be intrinsicallytied to computer technology because such valuations may include analysisof items that only exist due to the advent of computer technology, suchas items that are retrieved from social network services or streamingnetwork services.

The systems and methods described herein, such as for media sponsorshipvaluation, may improve computer-related technology. In some embodiments,the system may process thousands or hundreds of thousands of media itemsthat can include large amounts of data (e.g., gigabytes, terabytes, orpetabytes of data). The techniques described herein may efficientlyidentify objects in the media items for valuation, such as by usingalgorithms that classify the data into manageable chunks for objectrecognition processing. For example, an efficient algorithm for objectrecognition for sponsorship valuation may first classify the media itemto identify a particular scene, sport, team, or other identifyinginformation in the media item that further identifies a subset ofclassifiers, such as neural networks, for specific sponsor objects.Without such object recognition algorithms, the processing times forobjection recognition may be unacceptable or a system may be unable toidentify an object for sponsorship valuation altogether.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram of an illustrative method 900 that may beimplemented by a computing system, such as system 302, for determiningan overall sponsor valuation based on images and/or video appearing inone or more media items. At block 902, the system may retrieve mediaitems from one or more media channels. The media items can be posted toone or more social media network services, broadcast by one or morebroadcast networks, streamed by one or more media networks, and/or madeaccessible by one or more digital networks. The retrieved media items,which originate from the broadcast networks, can be media items that aretransmitted by or to the broadcast networks. In some embodiments, thesystem can communicate with and/or retrieve media items from the one ormore media channels via an API. In some embodiments, the API (such as anAPI for a social media network service) enables the system to query theone or more media channels. The system can query the API with an inputparameter such as a keyword, tag, or category, and/or to retrieve mediaitem result sets.

At block 904, the system may identify, from the retrieved media items,one or more media items that depict an object associated with a sponsor(e.g., a logo or other visual content intended to function as anadvertisement for the sponsor). The image or video may be identified toinclude the object of interest based on the various methods describedherein. The system can identify a media item that depicts a sponsorobject associated with a sponsor where the sponsor object is detectedbased at least in part by a machine learning model based on image dataor video data of the media item, The system can provide a feature of thefirst media item as input to a classifier associated with one or moresponsors. The classifier can be trained to identify, based on the inputfeature, a target image object associated with one of the one or moresponsors. The classifier can be trained with a large amount of trainingdata that includes many sponsor objects (e.g., logos). In someembodiments, the classifier can be trained with at least some supervisedmachine learning. In other embodiments, the classifier can be trainedwith at least some unsupervised machine learning. The computer visionalgorithm used by the system may use classification logic to narrow downthe applicable scene, object, sport, team, or other identifyinginformation in the media item that further identifies a subset ofclassifiers for specific sponsor objects. In some embodiments, thesystem may store classification data that a particular venue or sportingparticipant is associated with one or more sponsors. Thus, during thecomputer vision process, if it is determined that an image or video isfor a particular venue or sporting participant, then the system mayapply the classifiers that correspond to sponsors that are associatedwith the particular venue or sporting participant. Additional detailsregarding identification of objects or other features in images or videowith computer vision are described in further detail above with respectto FIG. 6.

Next, at block 906, the system may determine a media cost equivalent ofthe media item based on reach and/or engagement data associated with themedia item, which may be accessible via the respective media channelsource of the media item. As one example with respect to broadcastnetwork content in which advertisements can be purchased, the cost topurchase a 30 second advertisement may be multiplied by the amount oftime that the brand was displayed in the video, and further adjustedbased on actual viewership numbers when available. In situations inwhich actual viewership numbers or “reach” data is available (such as ona video sharing website in which the number of page views or video viewsis listed on a webpage or is otherwise available), the number of viewsthat an image or video receives may be considered in the sponsorshipvaluation. Additionally or alternatively, user engagement may beconsidered (such as the number of users who selected a link or URLassociated with an image or video posted to a social network or othernetwork location).

For example, a media cost equivalent may be determined, in someembodiments, based on a blend of CPEE (Cost-Per-Engagement-Equivalent)and CPME (Cost-Per-Thousand-Equivalent) if a given sponsor were topurchase the media exposure that was instead gained through other means(such as users posting media to social networks). Depending on theembodiment and the available data, an average CPME for the network as awhole may be used (e.g., the average CPME for advertisements on aspecific social network), or more granular CPME data based on keywordsmay be used. For media items that do not have exact reach metrics orviewership data, a greater weight may be applied to engagement numbers.Some media channels may provide actual reach data (e.g., data regardingthe number of users who in fact viewed a media item), while others mayprovide this information more selectively, such as by restricting suchinformation to the owner of the account of the media item. Accordingly,in some embodiments, accounts that are owned by the sponsor or itsaffiliate (which may be referred to herein as a sponsor “owned andoperated” account) may have actual reach data available, whereas similarmedia from the same event that is posted by a third party may not haveactual reach data available. In one example, a formula may be applied asfollows:

Media cost equivalent=([Engagements*CPEE]*w ₁)+([Reach*CPME]*w ₂).

In applying the above formula for a non-owned and operated account orwhere actual reach data is otherwise not available or not reliable, theweighting wi with respect to engagement may be set relatively high (suchas 90% or 0.9), while the weighting w₂ with respect to reach may be setrelatively low (such as 10% or 0.1). For example, a sponsor may be mostinterested in the number of users who actually saw the object depictedin the media item, but the system may need to estimate this number basedon “likes,” responses, click-through numbers, or other engagementnumbers as a proxy when view numbers are not available or not reliable.As described herein, the percentage or total media values attributableto different sets or types of accounts may be determined and displayedto a user. For example, a first value may be determined for “owned andoperated” accounts, and another for non- “owned and operated” accounts.For example, a sponsor may be interested to know that organic socialmedia sharing of a video clip accounted for a certain percentage ordollar value of the total media cost equivalent, as opposed to views ofsocial media that the sponsor itself posted for viewing by users alreadyfollowing or subscribing to the brand owner's social media account(s).

A variation of the above media cost equivalent formula for a videohosted on a video sharing service may be, for example:

Media cost equivalent=(Views*[Network Cost-per-View]*[ReachWeight]*[30-second cost equivalent])+(Engagement*[NetworkCost-per-Engagement]*[Engagement Weight]).

In some embodiments, the system can determine the media cost equivalentbased at least in part on data associated with a media channel by whichthe media item has been distributed. Example data can include a quantityof engagements with the media item or a quantity of shares of the mediaitem. The system can determine the media cost equivalent based at leastin part on a quantity of engagements with the media item, a cost perengagement equivalent for the media item, a quantity of views or sharesof the media item, and a cost per thousand equivalent for the mediaitem. The system can determine the media cost equivalent by calculatinga first cost from (i) a quantity of engagements with a media item and(ii) a cost per engagement equivalent for the media item; calculating asecond cost from (i) a quantity of views or shares of the media item and(ii) a cost per thousand equivalent for the media item; and calculatinga third cost by combining the first cost and the second cost. The systemcan determine the media cost equivalent based at least in part on aquantity of engagements with the media item, a network cost perengagement equivalent for the media item, a quantity of views or sharesof the media item, and a network cost per view for the media item. Thesystem can determine the media cost equivalent by calculating a firstcost from (i) a quantity of engagements with a media item and (ii) anetwork cost per engagement equivalent for the media item; calculating asecond cost from (i) a quantity of views or shares of the media item and(ii) a network cost per view for the media item; and calculating a thirdcost by combining the first cost and the second cost.

Once a media cost equivalent is determined for a given media item (suchas for a post on a social media network or a television broadcastdepicting the sponsor object), the percentage of the total media costequivalent to attribute to a given sponsor may be determined at block908. In some embodiments, the percentage to apply to the total mediacost equivalent may generally correlate with how prominent the sponsorobject is in the image, video or other media. This percent attributionfor a given photo or video may be based on various factors, such assize, clarity, duration, number of appearances, number of other logos,and position of the sponsor object in relation to the full image orvideo. In some embodiments, determining the percentage can includecalculating at least one of: a size of the sponsor object in the mediaitem relative to a frame of the first media item; a clarity of thesponsor object in the media item relative to a reference object; aduration of the sponsor object in the media item relative to a totalduration of the media item; or a position of the sponsor object in themedia item relative to a reference object in a reference frame.

The system can further calculate the percentage using one or more of thefollowing techniques, such as by using computer vision scoringtechniques. The features of the image or video, such as a size, clarity,duration or position of the sponsor object or other sponsor objects inthe media item, can be determined based on an automated analysis of theimage data or video data of the media item. The system can determine asize of the sponsor object (in a height and width measurement such as apixel height and a pixel width) in the media item relative to a frame ofthe first media item, where the frame includes a height and widthmeasurement (such as another pixel height and a pixel width). A methodfor determining the percentage based on the size of the sponsor objectcan include determining a ratio of the measurements of the sponsorobject to the measurements of the frame of the media item. The systemcan determine the clarity of the sponsor object in the media itemrelative to a reference object, such as a stock photo. A referenceobject may be a visual depiction of a particular with near-optimalclarity. A method for determining the percentage based on clarity caninclude: retrieving a reference object that corresponds to the sponsorobject in the media item, where the reference object is a near-optimalpresentation of the sponsor object; and comparing the reference objectto the sponsor object in the media item, where comparing can include thesystem using computer vision and/or classifiers to output a degreecorrespondence between an image of the reference object and the image ofthe sponsor object in the media item. A method for determining thepercentage based on the duration of the object in the media itemrelative to a total duration of the media item can include: calculatinga duration of time that the sponsor object is present in the media item;calculating or retrieving a total duration of the media item; anddetermining a ratio between (i) the duration of time that the sponsorobject was present in the media item and (ii) the total duration of themedia item.

In some embodiments, a method for determining the percentage can includea time based deduction. A time based deduction for a video can take intoaccount a total duration of the video, a likelihood regarding the partsof a video the user may watch (e.g., users may tend to watch thebeginning of a video and not the end), and/or the likelihood of how longa user would watch the entire video. For example, if a video is fiveminutes long and has 100 views, the likelihood that all 100 viewerswatched the full five minutes may be unlikely. Therefore, the system canplace a deduction on the media cost equivalent based on the actual timethat a sponsor object appears within the video. For example, a sponsorobject that is viewed within the first 30 seconds may receive 100% ofthe media cost equivalent value, but if the sponsor object only appearsduring seconds 4:25-4:55, then the percentage value may be 5% of thecost equivalent value. This can be tracked via a computer vision scoringalgorithm that can keep track of each exposure frame within a video(e.g., each frame of a video that depicts the sponsor object) and canidentify where that frame is in comparison to the duration of the entirevideo. The time based deduction method for determining the percentagecan further include: retrieving a default percentage for the time baseddeduction (e.g., 100%); identifying one or more playback positions ofthe sponsor object in the first media item; identifying, from the one ormore playback positions, a first chronological appearance of the sponsorobject in the first media item (e.g., the first time a sponsor objectappears could be during seconds 4:25-4:55 of a video); calculating anadjusted percentage (e.g., 5%) for the time based deduction from thedefault percentage, the first chronological appearance, and a totalduration of the first media item (e.g., a five minute long video). The4:25-4:55/5% example described above is an application of the time baseddeduction. Thus, the adjusted percentage of the media cost equivalentmay be greater where the first appearance of the sponsor object iscloser to the end of the media item.

In some embodiments, a method for determining the percentage can includea prominence calculation. The prominence calculation can represent thedifference between a sponsor object that physically appears in thesporting event itself (e.g., someone physically at the sporting eventwould see it) versus one that is digitally overlaid on the video (onlysomeone watching the video or looking at a photo would see it). Theprominence calculation method can include applying computer visiontechniques to attempt to determine one or more objects (such as anattempt to determine one or more physical objects at a venue includingstanchions, goal posts, tunnels, and other areas for presenting sponsorinformation) in a media item. However, if a particular physical objectcannot be identified with respect to the determined sponsor object inthe media item, then the prominence calculation method may increase thelikelihood that the sponsor object is a digital overlay in the mediaitem since a physical object containing the sponsor object could not beidentified. Another prominence calculation method can include: detectingthat the sponsor object is in the media item using computer visiontechniques and/or classifier processing; providing a second feature ofthe media item as input to a second classifier associated with one ormore sponsor objects, where the second classifier is trained to output alikelihood that the sponsor object in the media item corresponds to aphysical object at a venue or the sponsor object corresponds to adigital overlay in a first image or video of the venue of the mediaitem. In some embodiments, the percentage for prominence may be greaterif there is a determination that the sponsor object is likely a digitaloverlay since the sponsor object may be more readily recognizable byviewers as opposed to a sponsor object that is in the physicalbackground of a video or photo, such as a physical sign. Additionalmethods for detecting prominence and/or determining a prominencepercentage are described herein.

Once the percentage attribution is determined, the overall sponsorvaluation may be determined at block 910. For example, if the media costequivalent at block 906 is determined to be $10,000, and the percentageto attribute to the given object/sponsor is determined at block 908 tobe 50%, the overall sponsor valuation for the given sponsor may bedetermined to be $5,000 at block 910 (i.e., $10,000 multiplied by a 0.5discount off the full value). Further, the system can calculate anoverall sponsor valuation for a single media item or for multiple mediaitems. For example, many media items (e.g., hundreds or thousands)related to a particular sponsor can be processed by the method 900 andthe overall sponsor valuation may include an aggregate value of thecalculated media cost equivalency and corresponding percentages.Further, the system can calculate an overall sponsor valuation thatincludes media items from multiple media channels, such as social medianetwork services, broadcast networks, streaming media networks, and/ordigital networks.

In some embodiments, the system can present the overall sponsorvaluation and/or other related data in a report or a user interface.Additional reports or user interfaces are described in further detailherein, such as with respect to FIGS. 5A, 5B, and 8. The system cangenerate a user interface or report that includes the overall sponsorvaluation, a first valuation associated with a sponsor for a firstsocial media network, a second valuation associated with the sponsor fora second broadcast network, and/or one or more additional valuationsassociated with the sponsor for additional media channels. In the userinterface or report, for each of the first social media network, thesecond broadcast network, and/or the other media channel, the userinterface or report may further include at least one of a volume, anumber of impressions, or a number of engagements. The system cangenerate a user interface or report that includes, for each of aplurality of objects (such as a physical object like a bobblehead orstanchion) associated with the sponsor that have been identified inimage data or video data of media items, at least one or more of: anumber of posts, a reach estimate, a number of engagements, or a mediaitem valuation.

Additional Features for a Dynamic Sponsorship Exchange

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to a dynamic sponsorshipexchange. For example, advertisement space within a venue, such as anarena, can be sold as one element of a larger sponsorship package for agiven rights holder before the start of a sponsorship period, such asbefore the start of a season. The advertising spaces can include staticdisplays (e.g., a tunnel, shot clock, or arena floor) or dynamicsignage. Example dynamic signage include rotational display devices(e.g., an LED device that can change advertisements on-demand or basedon a set intervals) and placeholder spaces where a digital advertisementcan be inserted into the space (e.g., a green screen). LED displaydevices can be sold for periods of time, such as thirty secondincrements. Thus, the sponsor can be guaranteed that amount ofadvertisement time on the dynamic signage, such as for thirty secondsfor each sporting event or for each sporting event of a season. In thistraditional advertising model there may be no logic to when each sponsoris given its allocated time. This may be expected in a traditionaltelevision broadcast environment where the audience size may notfluctuate much and it may not significantly impact a sponsor's mediavalue (e.g., the viewership of a particular live sporting event may be450,000 and may not fluctuate much during the sporting event). However,content consumption patterns by viewers (e.g., such as consuming contentvia social media networks and/or streaming networks) have begun to varygreatly, which appears to be an increasing trend especially amongyounger generations and younger viewers. For example, a compellingsports highlight may rapidly spread through social media and may gain alarge number views and/or engagements (e.g., millions of views and/orengagements) in mere hours. Accordingly, a real or near-time system mayadvantageously allocate control of dynamic signage among a pool ofsponsors and rights holders in an electronic exchange. The exchange canallow sponsors and/or rights holders to efficiently bid on advertisementopportunities or to accept such bids during live sporting events or mayimplement automatic bidding rules established by sponsors. In someembodiments, the rules described herein may programmatically identifymoments in a sporting event that are likely to be shared or depicted inlarge volume in one or more media channels, e.g., a “viral” highlight.The exchange, sponsor, or rights holders systems may dynamicallygenerate valuations and/or bid values for the signage opportunitiesbased on real-world events.

The systems and methods described herein, such as for dynamic allocationof signage opportunities at physical locations, may improvecomputer-related technology. In some embodiments, traditional signagesystems display particular sponsor messages at particular timesaccording to a predetermined schedule where the schedule may be set wellin advance of a sporting event and/or without the ability to modify theschedule during the live sporting event. Thus, the automatic rulesdescribed herein may improve the efficient allocation of signageassignments between sponsors and rights holders and/or may automaticallycause dynamic signage (such as display devices) to present differentvisual sponsorship data. Further, the exchange between rights holdersand sponsors, which includes rights holders exchanging dynamic signagerights in exchange for consideration from sponsors, may be based oninformation that includes expected viewership across different mediachannels and/or based on overall media valuations that may be accessibleto rights holders and sponsors. As described herein, the overall mediavaluations may be computed based on computer vision techniques that maybe inherently tied to computer technology.

In some embodiments, rights holders systems can use the exchange tobetter manage pacing of sponsorship campaigns. For example, a particularsponsor may have paid five million dollars for ninety seconds of atunnel LED display device throughout the season, but the sponsor mayhave only received approximately one million dollars of media value bythe season halfway mark. Thus, the rights holder could give the sponsormore time on dynamic signage at the physical location or give thesponsor access to highly valued opportunities to increase the chancesthat the sponsor will benefit in greater media value from a compellinghighlight gaining popularity in one or more media channels, such as bygoing “viral.”

FIG. 10 is a block diagram of an exchange system for allocation ofdynamic signage at one or more physical locations. The networkenvironment 1030 can include a network 336, an exchange system 1000,sponsor systems 1014, rights holder systems 1012, venue systems 1016,media channels 1020, historical data providers 1018, and event dataproviders 1022. The exchange system 1000 can facilitate matchinginventory of dynamic signage from the rights holder systems 1012 withrequests from the sponsor systems 1014 for dynamic signage. Oncematched, the exchange system 1000 and/or the rights older systems 1012can transmit messages to the venue systems 1016 that control the dynamicsignage at respective physical locations.

The exchange system 1000 can include a valuation service 1004, acomputer vision service 1002, an exchange service 1006, a classifierdata store 330, a video/image data store 332, a historical data store1008, and a venue data store 1010. The exchange system 1000 can retrievehistorical data, as described below, from the historical data providers1018. The historical data may be stored in the historical data store1008 of the exchange system 1000. The exchange system 1000 can retrieveevent data, as described below, from the event data providers 1022. Theexchange system 1000 can store inventory data regarding the rightsholder's dynamic signage in the venue data store 1010. During one ormore sporting events, the valuation service 1004 can dynamicallygenerate valuations or bids for the time segments of the dynamic signagedescribed below. In some embodiments, the valuations correspond to afloor price for the time segment. The valuation service 1004 can use thehistorical data and/or the event data to price the time segments. Insome embodiments, the valuation service 1004 can communicate with thecomputer vision service 1002 to receive object recognition data and/orthe output of computer vision techniques. The computer vision service1002 may use the computer vision techniques described herein forprocessing image or video data from the media channels 1020. Thecomputer vision service 1002 may communicate with the classifier datastore 330, the video/image data store 332, and/or the media channels1020. The valuation service 1004 may use the object recognition dataand/or the output of computer vision techniques to generate valuations,as described herein. While not shown in FIG. 1, in some embodiments,components of the exchange system, such as the valuation service 1004,may be implemented by the sponsor systems 1014 or the rights holdersystems 1012. The exchange service 1006 can publish the generatedvaluation data to the sponsor systems 1014 and/or the rights holdersystems 1012.

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram of an illustrative method 1100 that may beimplemented by a computing system, such as system 302 or system 1000,for implementing an exchange to dynamically control dynamic signage at aphysical location, such as a venue. The exchange may enable sponsors andrights holders to buy and sell segments of time for acquisition topresent sponsorship data on the dynamic signage (such as displaydevices) at a physical location. An example time segment can correspondto an interval, such as a thirty-second segment or a one-minute segment,and/or can include a start time and an end time. Thus, a rights holdersystem may maintain an inventory of time segments for dynamic signage ata physical location where at least some of the time segments may not beassigned to a sponsor (such as at the beginning of a sporting event) andat least some of the time segments may be dynamically assigned and/oracquired by sponsors during the live sporting event, which causes thedynamic signage to present visual sponsorship data during the livesporting event.

In some embodiments, instead of a display device, the physical locationcan include placeholder areas where digital visual sponsorship data canbe virtually projected onto the placeholder areas in a live broadcast ofthe sporting event, such that a person attending the sporting event maynot see the virtually projected sponsorship data but a person watchingthe broadcast could see the virtually projected sponsorship data.Accordingly, different visual sponsorship data could be presented in theplaceholder areas simultaneously depending on customization logic. Forexample, virtual time segments could be sold regionally such that afirst sponsor could visually project their sponsorship data at theplaceholder area to a first broadcast region where the sporting event isbeing shown, and a second sponsor could visually project differentsponsorship data at the same placeholder area but to a second broadcastregion that is different from the first broadcast region.

At block 1102, the system may retrieve historical data associated with asporting event. In some embodiments, the historical data may beretrieved from one or more historical data providers. Historical dataproviders include sports databases that include sports data such asstatistics, rosters, schedule data, gamelogs, team data, participantdata (e.g., player data), awards, records, leaders, scores, titles,standings and/or other information. Additional information regardinghistorical data is described in further detail below with respect toFIG. 12.

At block 1104, the system retrieves the event data associated with thesporting event. The event data can represent a state of the sportingevent in real time or near real time. The system can retrieve event datafrom an event data provider. The event data provider can include a livesports data feed that can include an API for retrieving live dataregarding a sporting event. Example event data includes one or moremetric values for a sporting event (e.g., a score, fouls, homeruns,penalties, etc.), one or more time values associated with the sportingevent (e.g., a current time or time remaining at the sporting event), astate of the sporting event (e.g., a timeout, break, half-time, quarter,round, inning, or live gameplay), one or more participants in thesporting event, one or more metric values for a particular participant,and/or one or more metric values associated with the physical location(e.g., the venue) where the sporting event is taking place (e.g., anoise level or attendance number at the physical location). In someembodiments, event data can be retrieved from a social media networkservice. Example event data from a social media network service includestrending data, such as tags or keywords that are trending in socialmedia posts within a threshold period of time from a time of thesporting event. In some embodiments, the computer vision techniquesdescribed herein may be used to dynamically determine event dataassociated with a sporting event in real-time or near-time based onimage or video of the sporting event.

At block 1106, the system generates a valuation for a time segment fromthe historical data and/or the event data. For example, the exchangesystem can generate a valuation for a time segment. In otherembodiments, a rights holder's system or a sponsor's system may generatethe valuation for the time segment. Additionally or alternatively, theexchange system may accept manual valuations, such as bids or offersreceived from a user via user input. As described herein, the exchangesystem may apply one or more rules to generate a valuation for the timesegment where the one or more rules may use the historical data and/orevent data to value the time segment.

An algorithm for generating a valuation for a time segment can includeselecting a base value for a time segment. For example, a time segmentfor a particular time of the season, event, time of the sporting event(e.g., Monday night, Saturday night, versus Sunday morning) may have abase starting value. The system can generate current cumulative datafrom initial historical data and event data. For example, the system candetermine a current number of home runs for a particular player in aseason by adding the home runs of a player in a season (historical data)to home runs by the player at the sporting event (event data). Thesystem can apply a rule to the current cumulative data to determinewhether the rule is satisfied. In the home run example, the rule mayinclude logic such as:home_runs_per_season_for_player_x>=(home_run_record_per_season—threshold_runs),which can enable the system to determine whether a particular player isclose to a home run record. If a rule is satisfied, then the base valuefor the time segment can be increased. In other embodiments, if a ruleis satisfied, then the base value for the time segment can be decreased.In some embodiments, the delta for the adjustment to the base value canbe a predetermined value for all time segments, a predetermined valuefor the particular rule, or a dynamically determined value.

Additional example algorithms for generating a valuation or a bid for atime segment may be based on rule processing of at least one ofhistorical data or event data. The system can determine that a rule issatisfied by at least one of historical data or event data. For example,if a team or player is ranked within a threshold, the valuation or a bidvalue may be increased. As another example, if a metric value (e.g., ascore or a decibel level at the sporting event) or a time value iswithin a threshold (e.g., there is less than a particular number ofminutes left in a sporting event), the valuation or bid may beincreased. In some embodiments, the system can include a dabase ofrules, where each rule is associated with a particular sponsor andincludes logic to update a bid for a time segment for the particularsponsor.

Further example algorithms for generating a valuation or a bid for atime segment may be based on rule processing of social media data. Asdescribed herein, the system may retrieve trending data from a socialmedia network service, which may include an API. The trending data caninclude textual data, such as tags or keywords (e.g., “#GoTeamX” or“#ThrowBackThursday”), that are trending in social media posts within athreshold period of time from a time of the sporting event. The systemcan determine whether a keyword (such as one or more words or phrases)associated with the sporting event textually corresponds to the textualdata of the trending data. Example textual correspondence includes thekeyword being present in or partially matching the textual data of thetrending data. In some embodiments, the system applies natural languageprocessing to determine a correspondence between the keyword associatedwith the sporting event and the textual data of the trending data.Additional algorithms for using social media data for time segmentvaluation includes querying the social media network service (such asretrieving one or more posts within a certain time regarding aparticular topic) and using the query results. For example, a rule canincrease a valuation or bid for a time segment if particular keywordsare present in the social media data, such as the text data includingreferences to a particular team or player and references to keywordsindicating potential user interest (e.g., “record,” “great,” or“champion”). The system may apply similar text-based rules to other datasources than social media network services, such as news feeds and newsalert data sources to determine heightened potential user interest in asporting event for valuation or bidding purposes.

Example conditional logic of the one or more rules for generatingvaluations or bids includes one or more of the following.

-   -   If a team or participant is ranked within a threshold (e.g., if        the home team and away team are each ranked in the top five in        the league, or if the away team is ranked in the top five in the        league).    -   If the sporting event is a playoff game or a championship event.    -   If the sporting event is a rubber match or game five or seven in        a series.    -   If the score is within a threshold number of points.    -   If there is less than a threshold time left in the sporting        event.    -   If the sporting event is in live gameplay or not (e.g., if it's        during a timeout, a display device is not likely to be        associated with a game highlight).    -   If a team or participant from the sporting event was “trending”        on social media within a threshold period of time before the        sporting event.    -   If a team or participant is close to breaking a record or        surpassing a milestone.    -   If a particular participant (e.g., a player) is at the sporting        event.    -   If a participant has a metric value (e.g., number of points,        rebounds, assists) over a threshold. For example, the        participant could be within a threshold of getting a triple        double or a hat trick.    -   If the physical location has a noise level (e.g., a decibel        level) or a gate attendance greater than a threshold.

In some embodiments, the one or more rules may dynamically change and/orselect the sponsorship data to be presented on the dynamic signage basedon conditional logic. The system can determine sponsorship presentationdata associated with the rule that has been satisfied. The system canexecute logic to dynamically select sponsorship presentation data amongtwo or more presentation options. In some embodiments, the system candynamically generate sponsorship based on the rule that has beensatisfied. For example, if a close game logic is triggered, then therule may indicate that a particular message should be displayed on thedynamic signage (e.g., “Feeling Anxious? Grab a CandyBar”). The systemcan further execute logic with template data to generate customizedpresentation data. For example, if a particular player achieves a recordor scores over a certain threshold, the system can execute logic toinsert a current score into a message such as “<score variable>!Go![Sponsor Name]”.

At block 1108, the system publishes the valuation or bid on theexchange. The system can transmit the valuation or bid to one or morecomputing devices, such as computing devices for sponsors or rightsholders. The sponsor systems can receive the valuations. The rightsholder systems or the exchange can receive the bids. In someembodiments, the sponsor systems may present the valuations in a userinterface that can be accepted or ignored by a user on the sponsor side.Additionally or alternatively, automated processes may accept or ignorethe valuations for time segments according to one or more sponsorheuristics for acquiring time segments for display visual sponsorshipdata. As described herein, sponsors may be presented overall sponsorvaluations, media value percentage metrics, near-time or real-time mediavalues across one or more media channels, such as broadcast networks,streaming networks, digital networks, and social media networks. Thus,sponsors can use the provided media value data to determine whether ornot to acquire the time segments via the exchange. In some embodiments,the exchange may restrict access to certain marketplaces of timesegments for a predetermined approved list of sponsors. Additionally oralternatively, after a threshold period of time without being acquired,time segment inventory may be released to other sponsors that are not ona priority list of sponsors.

In some embodiments, the system does not publish the valuations or bidson the exchange. For example, the exchange may automatically executebidding rules for sponsors that increase bids based on programmaticlogic that certain moments may be of additional value to a sponsor. Theexchange may automatically select winning bidders and may causepresentation of sponsorship data associated with the winner and/or theone or more satisfied rules. In other embodiments, the system transmitsan indication that a rule is satisfied to one or more computing devicesof one or more sponsors. Thus, the sponsors may submit bids to acquiretime segments based on the indicators, which may indicate potentialmoments of value to the sponsors.

At block 1110, sponsors are matched to rights holders to acquire timesegments based on the valuations or bids. In response to receiving thevaluation, the sponsor system can transmit a request for the first timesegment for the valuation price or another price. The rights holdersystem or the exchange system can accept the request from the sponsor toassign the selected time segment to the sponsor. In other embodiments,the sponsor system can generate a bid and transmit the bid to theexchange system. The rights holder systems can possibly accept the offerfrom the sponsors. In some embodiments, the exchange includes automaticmatching rules from sponsors and rights holders and does not need tocommunicate with external sponsors' or rights holders' systems toconduct the matching.

At block 1112, the system can cause the dynamic signage at the physicallocation to present the corresponding sponsorship data for the acquiredtime segment. The exchange system or a rights holder system can transmitinstructions to venue systems to dynamically present selectedsponsorship data on the dynamic signage for the time segment. In someembodiments, the sponsorship data is presented on a display device atthe physical location such that physical attendees can view thesponsorship data. In other embodiments, the sponsorship data isvirtually presented at a placeholder area such that broadcast orstreaming viewers of the sporting event can see the sponsorship data butphysical attendees may not be able to see the visual sponsorship data.

FIG. 12 illustrates historical data for use by the exchange system ingenerating valuations or bids of time segments on the dynamic signage.The data environment 1200 can include data stores 1202, 1204, and 1206.The data stores 1202, 1204, and 1206, shown in the form of tables, areillustrative and not meant to be limiting (e.g., while depicted in FIG.12 as tables for illustrative purposes, a variety of data structures maybe used for storage of the data). In some embodiments, differenthistorical data may be used and/or there may be fewer or additionalhistorical data stores. For example, the data schema for historicalsporting data may be logically grouped by sport or by any other logicalgrouping. The standings data store 1202 includes example standings datafor teams or participants of a sporting event. As illustrated thestandings data store 1202 includes wins, losses, standings, andconsecutive wins data. The records data store 1204 includes examplerecords data, such as all-time wins records and consecutive winsrecords. Accordingly, the system can programmatically apply thevaluation or bidding rules by accessing and/or combining the historicaldata. For example, in the context of a sporting event, a rule (such asby using the standings data store 1202 and the records data store 1204)can determine that Team 3 has 24 total wins and is within a thresholdnumber of the all-time-wins record, 30, and, therefore, a time segmentfor the dynamic signage at the sporting event with Team 3 may receive ahigher valuation as a result.

As another example, in the context of a sporting event, a different rulecan determine that Team 3 (such as by using the standings data store1202 and the records data store 1204) has 15 consecutive wins and iswithin a threshold number of the consecutive-time-wins, 17, and,therefore, a time segment for the dynamic signage at the sporting eventwith Team 3 may receive a higher valuation as a result. As describedherein, the system can use the standings column data in the data store1202 to determine higher or lower valuations data for dynamic signage ofsporting events that have the respective teams or participants. Forexample, teams or participants that are ranked within a certainthreshold may cause corresponding time segments to receive highervaluations.

An example rule for dynamic valuation of signage can use the participantor player data store 1206, which includes points for the season andaverage points per sporting event or game. Thus, another rule cancombine near-real time event data for the sporting event (such asParticipant 1 scoring 1 point at the sporting event) with the historicaldata (such as Participant 1' s 15 points for the season prior to thesporting event) to generate current cumulative data (such as Participant1 scoring 16 total points for the season based on the dynamiccalculation during the game) that may be within a threshold of the rulethat triggers an increased valuation for a time segment of dynamicsignage at the sporting event that includes the particular sportingparticipant.

It is to be understood that not necessarily all objects or advantagesmay be achieved in accordance with any particular embodiment describedherein. Thus, for example, those skilled in the art will recognize thatcertain embodiments may be configured to operate in a manner thatachieves or optimizes one advantage or group of advantages as taughtherein without necessarily achieving other objects or advantages as maybe taught or suggested herein.

All of the processes described herein may be embodied in, and fullyautomated via, software code modules executed by a computing system thatincludes one or more general purpose computers or processors. The codemodules may be stored in any type of non-transitory computer-readablemedium or other computer storage device. Some or all the methods mayalternatively be embodied in specialized computer hardware. In addition,the components referred to herein may be implemented in hardware,software, firmware or a combination thereof.

Many other variations than those described herein will be apparent fromthis disclosure. For example, depending on the embodiment, certain acts,events, or functions of any of the algorithms described herein can beperformed in a different sequence, can be added, merged, or left outaltogether (e.g., not all described acts or events are necessary for thepractice of the algorithms). Moreover, in certain embodiments, acts orevents can be performed concurrently, e.g., through multi-threadedprocessing, interrupt processing, or multiple processors or processorcores or on other parallel architectures, rather than sequentially. Inaddition, different tasks or processes can be performed by differentmachines and/or computing systems that can function together.

The various illustrative logical blocks, modules, and algorithm elementsdescribed in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein can beimplemented as electronic hardware, computer software, or combinationsof both. To clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware andsoftware, various illustrative components, blocks, modules, and elementshave been described above generally in terms of their functionality.Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or softwaredepends upon the particular application and design constraints imposedon the overall system. The described functionality can be implemented invarying ways for each particular application, but such implementationdecisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from thescope of the disclosure.

The various illustrative logical blocks and modules described inconnection with the embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented orperformed by a machine, such as a processing unit or processor, adigital signal processor (DSP), an application specific integratedcircuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or otherprogrammable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discretehardware components, or any combination thereof designed to perform thefunctions described herein. A processor can be a microprocessor, but inthe alternative, the processor can be a controller, microcontroller, orstate machine, combinations of the same, or the like. A processor caninclude electrical circuitry configured to process computer-executableinstructions. In another embodiment, a processor includes an FPGA orother programmable device that performs logic operations withoutprocessing computer-executable instructions. A processor can also beimplemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., a combinationof a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one ormore microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other suchconfiguration. Although described herein primarily with respect todigital technology, a processor may also include primarily analogcomponents. For example, some or all of the signal processing algorithmsdescribed herein may be implemented in analog circuitry or mixed analogand digital circuitry. A computing environment can include any type ofcomputer system, including, but not limited to, a computer system basedon a microprocessor, a mainframe computer, a digital signal processor, aportable computing device, a device controller, or a computationalengine within an appliance, to name a few.

The elements of a method, process, or algorithm described in connectionwith the embodiments disclosed herein can be embodied directly inhardware, in a software module stored in one or more memory devices andexecuted by one or more processors, or in a combination of the two. Asoftware module can reside in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory,EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, registers, hard disk, a removable disk, aCD-ROM, or any other form of non-transitory computer-readable storagemedium, media, or physical computer storage known in the art. An examplestorage medium can be coupled to the processor such that the processorcan read information from, and write information to, the storage medium.In the alternative, the storage medium can be integral to the processor.The storage medium can be volatile or nonvolatile.

Conditional language such as, among others, “can,” “could,” “might” or“may,” unless specifically stated otherwise, are otherwise understoodwithin the context as used in general to convey that certain embodimentsinclude, while other embodiments do not include, certain features,elements and/or steps. Thus, such conditional language is not generallyintended to imply that features, elements and/or steps are in any wayrequired for one or more embodiments or that one or more embodimentsnecessarily include logic for deciding, with or without user input orprompting, whether these features, elements and/or steps are included orare to be performed in any particular embodiment.

Disjunctive language such as the phrase “at least one of X, Y, or Z,”unless specifically stated otherwise, is otherwise understood with thecontext as used in general to present that an item, term, etc., may beeither X, Y, or Z, or any combination thereof (e.g., X, Y, and/or Z).Thus, such disjunctive language is not generally intended to, and shouldnot, imply that certain embodiments require at least one of X, at leastone of Y, or at least one of Z to each be present.

Any process descriptions, elements or blocks in the flow diagramsdescribed herein and/or depicted in the attached figures should beunderstood as potentially representing modules, segments, or portions ofcode which include one or more executable instructions for implementingspecific logical functions or elements in the process. Alternateimplementations are included within the scope of the embodimentsdescribed herein in which elements or functions may be deleted, executedout of order from that shown, or discussed, including substantiallyconcurrently or in reverse order, depending on the functionalityinvolved as would be understood by those skilled in the art.

Unless otherwise explicitly stated, articles such as “a” or “an” shouldgenerally be interpreted to include one or more described items.Accordingly, phrases such as “a device configured to” are intended toinclude one or more recited devices. Such one or more recited devicescan also be collectively configured to carry out the stated recitations.For example, “a processor configured to carry out recitations A, B andC” can include a first processor configured to carry out recitation Aworking in conjunction with a second processor configured to carry outrecitations B and C.

It should be emphasized that many variations and modifications may bemade to the above-described embodiments, the elements of which are to beunderstood as being among other acceptable examples. All suchmodifications and variations are intended to be included herein withinthe scope of this disclosure.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computing system comprising: a memory; and aprocessor in communication with the memory and configured withprocessor-executable instructions to perform operations comprising:receiving media content, wherein the media content comprises image orvideo data; providing features of the media content as input to each of:(a) a first classification model trained to identify a scene and (b) asecond classification model trained to identify a sport-related object;determining a sport depicted in the media content based at least in parton output of the first classification model and second classificationmodel; identify text depicted in the media content using opticalcharacter recognition; comparing the text depicted in the media contentto a plurality of strings associated in an electronic data store withteams that play the sport, wherein each of a plurality of teams thatplay the sport are associated with individual strings of the pluralityof strings; determining a team that is depicted in the media content,wherein the team is identified based at least in part by determiningthat at least a portion of the text depicted in the media contentmatches a string that is associated with the team in the electronic datastore; retrieving sponsorship data identifying one or more sponsorsassociated with the team that is depicted in the media content;providing features of the media content as input to each of a pluralityof neural networks associated with the one or more sponsors, whereineach of the plurality of neural networks is trained to identify at leastone logo associated with one of the one or more sponsors; anddetermining that a first sponsor logo appears in the media content basedat least in part on output of the plurality of neural networksassociated with the one or more sponsors.
 2. The computing system ofclaim 1, wherein the scene that the first classification model istrained to identify comprises a type of sporting venue.
 3. The computingsystem of claim 1, wherein the sport-related object that the secondclassification model is trained to identify comprises one or more of: abasketball, a football, a basketball stanchion, football goalposts, apuck, a soccer goal, a hockey goal, or a tennis net.
 4. The computingsystem of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise determiningthat the team is a home team in a game depicted in the media content. 5.The computing system of claim 4, wherein the team is determined to bethe home team based at least in part on at least one of: output of asecond one or more neural networks trained using video footage of aplurality of home games of the team, or an ordering of team identifiersappearing in the media content.
 6. The computing system of claim 4,wherein the operations further comprise identifying a second teamplaying in the game depicted in the media content, wherein the secondteam is an away team in the game.
 7. The computing system of claim 1,wherein the operations further comprise generating a report thatincludes information representing at least (a) the first sponsor logoappearing in the media content and (b) a prominence of the first sponsorlogo in the media content.
 8. The computing system of claim 7, whereinthe operations further comprise determining the prominence of the firstsponsor logo in the media content based on at least one of: an amount ofblur of the first sponsor logo in the media content, an amount ofocclusion of the first sponsor logo in the media content, a position ofthe first sponsor logo in the media content, a size of the first sponsorlogo in the media content, or an object on which the first sponsor logoappears in the media content.
 9. The computing system of claim 1,wherein the sport depicted in the media content is determined based atleast in further part on output of a third classification model trainedto identify video of the sport based on training video depicting aplurality of games of the sport.
 10. A computer-implemented methodcomprising: as implemented by one or more computing devices configuredwith specific executable instructions, receiving media content, whereinthe media content comprises image or video data; providing a first setof features of the media content as input to one or more venueclassification models that are each trained to identify at least onetype of sporting venue; providing a second set of features of the mediacontent as input to one or more object classification models that areeach trained to identify at least one sport-related object; determininga sport depicted in the media content based at least in part on outputof the first classification model and second classification model;retrieving, from an electronic data store, text or object informationassociated with each of a plurality of teams that play the sportdepicted in the media content; and determining at least one team that isdepicted in the media content from among the plurality of teams thatplay the sport, wherein the team is identified based at least in part byidentifying, in the media content, depiction of at least a portion of atext string or an object that is associated with the team in theelectronic data store.
 11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10,further comprising: retrieving sponsorship data identifying one or moresponsors associated with the at least one team that is depicted in themedia content; providing features of the media content as input to eachof a plurality of classifiers associated with the one or more sponsors,wherein each of the plurality of classifiers is trained to identify atleast one logo associated with one of the one or more sponsors; anddetermining that a first sponsor logo appears in the media content basedat least in part on output of the plurality of classifiers associatedwith the one or more sponsors.
 12. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 10, wherein the media content is an image or a video posted to asocial media network.
 13. The computer-implemented method of claim 10,wherein the media content is digitally recorded broadcast video from asatellite or cable television source.
 14. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 10, wherein the sport depicted in the media content isdetermined based at least in part by a voting procedure that includes(a) applying a first weight to a first confidence level output by thefirst classification model and (b) applying a second weight to a secondconfidence level output by the second classification model.
 15. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the first weightcorrelates with a reliability of the first classification model incorrectly classifying previous media as depicting the sport in previoustrials, and wherein the second weight correlates with a reliability ofthe second classification model in correctly classifying previous mediaas depicting the sport in previous trials.
 16. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 10, further comprising determining a home team in a gamedepicted in the media content.
 17. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 16, wherein the home team is determined based at least in part onat least one of: output of one or more classifiers trained using videofootage of a plurality of home games of the team, or an ordering of teamidentifiers appearing in the media content.
 18. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 16, wherein the home team is determined based at leastin part by: determining a capture date of the media content; retrievinga game schedule associated with the at least one team that is depictedin the media content; and identifying the home team based at least inpart on a home team designation in the game schedule for a game playedon the capture date of the media content.
 19. A computing systemcomprising: a memory; and a processor in communication with the memoryand configured with processor-executable instructions to performoperations comprising: receiving media content, wherein the mediacontent comprises image or video data; providing a first set of featuresof the media content as input to one or more scene classification modelsthat are each trained to identify at least one type of scene associatedwith one or more sports; providing a second set of features of the mediacontent as input to one or more object classification models that areeach trained to identify at least one object associated with one or moresports; determining a sport depicted in the media content based at leastin part on output of the first classification model and secondclassification model; retrieving, from an electronic data store, text orobject information associated with each of a plurality of teams thatplay the sport depicted in the media content; and determining at leastone team that is depicted in the media content from among the pluralityof teams that play the sport, wherein the team is identified based atleast in part by identifying, in the media content, depiction of atleast a portion of a text string or an object that is associated withthe team in the electronic data store.
 20. The computing system of claim19, wherein the operations further comprise confirming that the at leastone team is depicted in the media content based at least in part byapplying one or more text classification models to text retrieved from asource of the media content, wherein the source comprises one of: (a) asocial media post in which the media content is embedded or linked, or(b) a webpage in which the media content is embedded or linked.